Jerome, Arizona -- The Wickedest Town in America

by Midge Steuber. The rugged mining community of Jerome has thrived by the hard work and hard play of tough men and women pitted against an equally hard mountain. William Murray solicited funding for the Black Hills mining camp from his uncle, a New York lawyer and financier named Eugene Murray Jerome, who reportedly was not interested. However, his independent wife was delighted at the prospect and raised $200,000 in development capital for Murray. In 1882, Frederick F. Thomas, Jeromeas first postmaster, named the mining camp a Jeromea in honor of the family. Jerome boomed, ultimately reaching a reported population peak of 15,000 in the 1920s, then dwindling to a ghost town after the mines closed. In 1967, the town was designated a National Historic Landmark, and today it is a flourishing artist community, as well as a motorcycle and travel destination.

Local author and historian Midge Steuber has been enchanted with Jerome's colorful history and free spirit from the moment she first visited the mountain community. For this volume, Steuber has spent countless hours immersed in the vast archives of the Jerome Historical Society assisted by the boundless knowledge of Jerome archivist Ronne Roope. The nonprofit Jerome Historical Society operates the Jerome Mine Museum on Main Street.

Softcover. 127 pages.