Jerome State Historic Park

A stop at the 1916 Douglas Mansion, now a state historic park, is time well invested in getting a digestible summary of Jerome's colorful history. There's a 30-minute film, a collection of photos and artifacts, plus a three-dimensional model of Jerome and its labyrinth of mining tunnels. 

The mansion was built at a cost of $150,000 by James S. Douglas, who struck it rich with the adjacent Little Daisy Mine. It was a modern building for its time with a wine cellar, billiard room, marble shower and a central vacuum system. The 8,700-square-

foot home was built with adobe bricks and is located on an isolated mesa with views of the Verde Valley, San Francisco Peaks and Jerome's commercial district up higher on Cleopatra Hill. 

Jerome State Historic Park has some picnic tables and it's a good spot for photos of the ghost town. Admission is $7.
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Established: 1964
Elevation: 4,924
Annual visitation: 51,137

Tuzigoot National Monument is 20 minutes away:
http://www.ontheroadarizona.com/tuzigoot-nm.html

Old ore cars and a stamp mill are among the mining relics outside the Douglas Mansion, with its carriage house in the background.

Jerome's Montana Hotel was the state's largest with 200 rooms. It was destroyed in a fire Feb. 28, 1915

The mansion had steam heat but also a fireplace here in the library.

Prospectors staked claims on copper deposits in 1876 and mining continued in Jerome for 77 years before the luck ran out and the town shut down in 1953.