JEROME ARIZONA

PAYING HOMAGE TO MINING HISTORY THROUGH ART AND TOURISM

- HELEN SERRAS-HERMAN

The town of Jerome was founded in the late 19th century on top of Cleopatra Hill of the Black Hill Mountains. The Cleopatra Hill is situated at 5,200 feet and overlooks the Verde Valley below. Jerome is about 100 miles north of Phoenix, along scenic State Route 89A that connects the famous Red Rocks of Sedona to the northeast, and the town of Prescott to the west.

The mining town of Jerome popped-up in temporary tents in the 1870s soon after the discovery of copper by three prospectors. The town was founded as a copper mining community in 1876 after the first claims were filed. The original prospectors sold their claims in 1880 to Frederick Tritle and Frederick Thomas, who, with the help of eastern financiers James McDonald and Eugene Jerome, created the United Verde Copper Company in 1883. Ironically, Eugene Jerome never visited the town, he only asked for it to be named after him.

That company only lasted two years, and the new owner, William Andrews Clark, a senator from Montana, had the vision to bring a narrow-gauge railroad to transport the ore, thus helping reduce the freight costs, and made the United Verde a successful mining venue and the largest copper-producing mine in the early 20th century Arizona Territory.

After multiple problems at the United Verde, including a geologic fault line, fires on the 400-foot level of sulfide ores, and the beginning of an open pit operation, the smelter was relocated from Jerome to the nearby new town of Clarkdale. It was completed in 1915. (Read more about Clarkdale in my article Taking a Closer Look at Copper, R&G August 2019).