Continued from part one…
After an overnight stay at Sedona (which would have been the name of my firstborn child, had my marriage to Madonna not been childless), my next voyage was a ride on the Verde Canyon Railroad. This was an enjoyable trip, but my camera was not happy, so I have only these very few photos to share:
After smoothing over relations with my camera, I headed uphill to the old mining town of Jerome. THIS IS MY FAVORITE PLACE EVER! Okay I don’t want to oversell it, but this is a place that I almost didn’t go to, and it turned out to be SO MUCH MORE than I expected. I’ve been to many an old mining town in many a western state (and even in North Carolina), and Jerome is definitely the coolest one yet!
On the way into town, I spotted a sign pointing the way to a park and museum. It was late afternoon, so the museum was closing just as I got there, but I found the Audrey Headframe Park to be worth a visit. The park sits atop the Little Daisy Mine, which apparently had two main shafts, called Audrey and Edith. Some structures and artifacts remain, in and around the park…
The Little Daisy Mine was one hell of a money maker. Between 1915 and 1938, this mine produced 5.5 TONS of gold. At today’s price, that much gold would be worth about $313 million! As if that weren’t enough, this mine also produced 221 tons of silver (take that, Elton John!). But it was first and foremost a copper mine, yielding 397,000 tons of copper, which would be worth about $3.7 billion today. You’d never guess that such wealth was once present in this small town, from the way it looks now. How does it look now? I’m glad you asked! Let’s take a walk around town…
Perhaps the best thing about Jerome is its location. Most of the old mining towns I’ve seen were built in a valley, below or around the mine(s). For reasons unbeknownst to me, Jerome was built on a mountainside above the mine. And not just above the mine, but above the foothills of the mountain on which the town is perched. So there’s a great view across the desert from just about every place in town…
OK, so we’ve established that Jerome is at a high altitude, but is it truly on a mountainside? Wouldn’t such a location be awfully steep? Well, yes. Case in point…meet Jerome’s “famous sliding jail”…
I spent the next few days in and around Sedona. The natural surroundings were spectacular, but I have to say, I didn’t like the town itself. It was touristy and it was crowded – traffic was truly awful at times. On one occasion, it took a half hour to drive half a mile back to my hotel. I can’t say I really want to go again, but it was worth seeing once. The setting was magnificent! Have a look…
Tune in next week for Sunset Crater, Monument Valley, and more!
Voyages with Parkinson's 
The Grand Hotel in Jerome was featured on Ghost Adventures several years ago.
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Based on the appearance of the place, I had guessed that it was relatively new, so I did some Googling. Apparently, it looks “new” due to renovations in the 1990’s. It was originally a hospital, and was built in the 1920’s, according to the history page on the hotel’s web site. (https://jeromegrandhotel.net/hotel-history/)
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