City in the Sky

Jerome, AZ is nicknamed The City in the Sky.  It's a mile high and clings to the steep slopes of Cleopatra Hill.  Its roots are copper mining, a typical boomtown of the early 1900s; population was 15,000 in the 30s, less than 100 in 1960.  It was a ghost town for many years before it was rediscovered by the artsy-craftsy crowd and various historians.  It now boasts a population of 444.  If you want to make it 445, there are still plenty of vacant buildings to choose from.  

Jerome from state historic park mansion.

Tourists doing squat exercises in foreground.

The town is only about 7 miles from Dead Horse SP so we toured the 'City' and had lunch there.  We also toured the state historic park, which is housed in the 8700 SF mansion built by one of the early mine owners in 1916.  The mansion is adobe, built from materials found onsite and was thought to be the largest adobe structure in the country at one time.

Mansion/historic park from 'downtown' Jerome

Mansion facade.

Don't even think about taking an RV through Jerome: narrow streets and extremely tight switchbacks are enough to make a VW Bug driver wet his pants.  A 40' Class A motorhome?  Upgrade the wet BVDs to full scale heart attack.

2700 pounds of azurite and malachite.

Closeup of the rock that's at bottom center in first picture above.