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The area around what is now Jerome was mined for silver and copper since the Spanish colonial era when Arizona was part of New Spain.
A mining camp named named Jerome was established atop "Cleopatra Hill" in 1883. It was named for Eugene Murray Jerome, a New York investor who owned the mineral rights and financed mining there. Eugene Jerome never visited his namesake town. Jerome was incorporated as a town on 8 March, 1889. The town housed the workers in the nearby United Verde Mine, which was said to produce over 1 billion dollars in ore over the next 70 years.
Jerome was reincorporated as a city in 1899 and a building code specifying brick or masonry construction instituted to end the frequent fires that had repeatedly burned up sections of the town previously.
Jerome became a notorious " wild west" town, a hotbed of prostitution, gamblingGambling (or betting is any behaviour involving the risk of money or valuables on the outcome of a game, contest, or other event in which the outcome of that activity is partially or totally dependent upon chance. Though for many it is a form of recreatio, and viceVice is the opposite of virtue. The modern English term that best captures its original meaning is the word vicious which means "full of vice. In this sense, the word vice comes from the Latin word vitium meaning "failing or defect". Vice and virtue One w. On 5 February, 19031903 has the latest occurring solstices and equinoxes for 400 years, because the Gregorian calendar hasn't had a leap year for seven years or a century leap year since 1600. Events January 1 Edward VII of the United Kingdom is proclaimed Emperor of India, the New York SunThe New York Sun is a daily newspaper published at New York City which debuted April 16, 2002. It is "the first general interest broadsheet newspaper to be launched in New York in two generations". Its owners include Hollinger International, the company o proclaimed Jerome to be "the wickedest town in the State".
In 1915Events January 12 The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of Congress. January 12 United States House of Representatives rejects proposal to give women the right to vote. January 13 An earthquake (6. 8 in Richter scale) in Avezzano, Ital the population of Jerome was estimated at 2,500.
Starting in May of 1917Events January 2 The Royal Bank of Canada takes over Quebec Bank. January 22 World War I: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe. January 25 The Danish West Indies is sold to the United States for $25 million January 25 Anti- there was a series of miners strikes, in part organized by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). On 10 July of that year armed agents of the mine owners roughly rounded up all the labor union organizers and unionized miners on to railroad cattle cars, on 12 July letting them out near Kingman, Arizona after they were warned not to return to Jerome if they valued their lives. This incident is known as the Jerome Deportation.
In 1918 fires spread out of control over 22 miles of underground mines. This prompted the end of underground mining in favor of open pit mining. For decades dynamite was used to open up pits in the area, frequently shaking the town and sometimes damaging or moving buildings; after one blast in the 1930s the city jail slid one block down hill intact.
In the late 1920s Jerome's population was over 15,000.
In 1953 the last of Jerome's mines closed, and much of the population left town. Jerome's population reached a low point of about 50 people in the late 1950s.
In 1967 Jerome was designated a Historic District, and a National Historic Landmark in 1976. Today Jerome is a tourism attraction, with many abandoned buildings from its boom town days.
In 1983, California folk-singer Kate Wolf wrote the song "Old Jerome" after visiting the town. In 1987 the town council adopted it as their official town song.