Jerome, AZ (# 0505)

Jerome, AZ, about 5 miles from Clarkdale. Jerome was founded based on discovery of a major copper deposit in about 1876; in its heyday it was a town of about 15,000 but with the depletion of the ore deposits and decreases in mining, by the 1960’s it had shrunk to a low of roughly 500.

I had been through Jerome at some point in the 1990’s and at that time it was largely a ghost town. It has since been ‘discovered’ and now many of the older commercial buildings have been converted into restaurants, shops, and boutique hotels.