Jerome, Arizona

Today I had the pleasure of visiting the town of Jerome (pop. 300, elev 5200 feet), which is 45 miles southwest of Flagstaff between Sedona and Prescott, overlooking the Verde Valley:

Jerome sits at 5200 feet above sea level, some 1500 feet above the base of Cleopatra Hill upon which the town sits and enjoys spectacular views of the surrounding valley, the Verde river, old ranch towns of Cottonwood and Cornville, and an old lake bed which is currently mined for lime to make cement (an interesting fact provided by my companion is that most of the cement which made the concrete of Glen Canyon Dam, built in the early 60s, came from this mine in the Verde Valley).

Founded in 1876, Jerome owes its existence, like many places in the west, to the 'gold rush'. Rich in copper, gold and silver, this area supported a large and profitable mining community by the early 1900s. By the 1920s Jerome had 15,000 inhabitants, along with a bustling community of shops, hotels, and saloons. There are photos all over the place which show Jerome in its heyday, with people scooting around on bikes and Ford model Ts.

There's a cool old hotel with a mechanical elevator that sits on top of the hill. The hotel was once a hospital and mental asylum (adopted as the current name of the hotel's restaurant - apparently it's John McCain's favourite place to eat, but (we hope) that's not the establishment's fault).

After the Depression things started to go downhill for Jerome. Copper was being mined a lot cheaper in South America, and Jerome was becoming less viable. Mining stopped in 1953 and for a time was in danger of going to ruin and becoming a real ghost town. In the late 1960s, however, it started to become established as a hippie and artists commune and has grown in strength ever since. The town is now a quirky slightly ramshackle collection of higgledy-piggledy buildings scattered across the summit of the hill. It has a permanent population of less than 300, most of whom are artists, writers, musicians, shopkeepers and hoteliers.

It calls itself a 'host town' but it's anything but. On this sunny saturday in early December there were a number of galleries, boutiques, bars and restaurants open for business and doing a brisk trade.

We got there early, enjoyed a good breakfast at the FlatIron cafe (a sister establishment to Flagstaff's excellent Macy's) before doing some shopping and seeing the sights. We met a number of local artists who have been in the town since between the late 60s and the late 70s, all of whom are real characters. The joke shop guy had a personality on him as well! The 'House of Joy' was once one of many brothels which served the town, became northern Arizona's only 4-star restaurant and was voted as one of the top 100 restaurants in the United States. Today it has been reinvented to house a collection of weird and wonderful artifacts from around the world and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.

On the way home I donned by Biggles-style goggles and freewheeled down the mountain on my new bike. It was a lot of fun, despite my companion having warned me against speed wobble, which thankfully I didn't get! At the end of the road was a roundabout! (now, this is noteworthy because if you spend any amount of time in America, as a Brit, you come to discover that the greatest most efficient invention of all time was not the wheel in a vertical position, but lying down in the middle of the road - trust me, my love for the roundabout knows no bounds)

An interesting place, unique even, and populated with people definitely not near 'the middle of the bell curve'. Certainly worth a peak and I'll definitely be going back. Next time, however, I have a debt to pay. I shall ride up those 1500 steep feet before I feel like I have earned the right to enjoy coming back down them! Now John Dempsey, the proprietor of the House of Joy, has told me that, at 90 years of age, he is still climbing the hill on this bike, I really have no excuse. See you at the top John!