Thursday, October 27, 2011

Cottonwood, AZ - Jerome and the Gold King Mine

One of the neat little day trips from Cottonwood is a small town named Jerome. Today it is a small town of 450 souls, most of them artists, restaurant owners and shop keepers and a few eccentrics, in other words it is a town for tourists and artists. However, it has a storied past filled with gold, rowdy miners, madams, wealthy mine owners and many others just trying to make a living out of the ore.

It sits on top of Cleopatra Hill, 5200’ up a winding mountain road next to one of the largest copper mines in Arizona which at its peak produced 3 million pounds of copper per month. In 1876 Jerome began when 3 prospectors staked claims on the rich copper deposits there. It began as a mining settlement of tents and grew into a roaring mining community with schools, hospitals, stores, churches, an opera house, several civic buildings and even sidewalks. At one point Jerome was the 4th largest city in the Arizona territory with a population peaking at 15,000 in the 1920’s. But, when the demand for copper slowed after WWII, the mine was closed, the miners and their families left and, by the 1960’s only 50 to 100 residents remained. They began to promote their town for tourism, first calling it a ghost town but now it is a thriving community and bustling tourist attraction.

The last time we had visited, the Jerome State Historic Park was closed so we ventured up again to see this and to spend some time in Jerome.

The Jerome State Historic Park is actually a mansion built in 1916 by James S Douglas, the owner of the richest copper mine in the town, for his family to live in while in Jerome. It is 8700 square feet, cost $150,000 when built and was built of adobe blocks made on site and thought to be the largest adobe structure in the country. Because the walls were made of adobe blocks, they were considerably deeper than most and you can see that in the picture below.
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In the house were a central vacuum system and Gary is standing next to that, electricity, concrete floors and a wine cellar, billiard room, marble shower and steam heat. It was quite a marvel for its time. Unfortunately, his family never lived there since it was so close to the mines in Jerome and thus not where his family wanted to live. Jerome was dusty, dirty, noisy and crowded, not a place to raise a family. Oh, wait a minute, the miners had to raise their families there.
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There were lots of pictures and displays of old mining equipment, maps of claims, stories of mines, etc. There were some displays of the drills miners used to find the copper ore. These drills, soon nicknamed ‘widow-makers’ stirred up dust and other particles which found their way into miners lungs. Many miners died of this but, when a judge had a chance to rule on safety, he declared that miners knew what they were getting into and that the mine owners bore no liability.

Here’s an ‘elevator’ car which took he miners down to where the work was. Note how small it was - there was no explanation about how many men could fit into one of these cars for the ride down. And, ‘down’ they went, further down, 1900’, than the height of the Empire State Building, 1250’. Claustrophobia? Dusty? Dirty? Dark?
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The displays it has which intrigued us the most were 3 dimensional displays of mines showing where the main deposits were, the shafts to get to them and the town sitting on top. I wish it might have shown up better in pictures but it just doesn’t

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After this we journeyed over to the Gold King Mine Ghost Town owned by Don Robertson. It is part junk yard,
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part working lumber mill, part restoration factory and part old ghost town with buildings and machinery. You just have to guess which is which. Don himself looks the part of an old miner gone to seed. But his appearance belies his abilities, skills and dreams. There was nothing here until he bought this land and he has hauled all of the things here and is working to restore them. One car he restored was a 1928 Studebaker Race Car and he still races it. He likes to start out at the rear of the pack and pass the others to demonstrate how good the old cars were made.
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It is a hoot. The story is that he originally charged $1.00 to see his place but people figured they’d get only $1.00 of sights. So he raised his prices and draws flocks of tourists now. You can hear the old sawmill working as you drive in. He’ll fire up his vintage race car for you if you wish.

And, look, he’s got an old motorhome. Pretty authentic: real wood sides, real metal roof - I’m wondering if it has real corian countertops.
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Does his place look like a junkyard? You bet. Was it fun to visit and see what he’s restored? Absolutely. We had a great time in our day in Jerome and could have found more to do. If you have a chance, visit Jerome.

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