They Came to Jerome: The Billion Dollar Copper Camp

The Most Unique City in America well typifies this rugged independent and self-reliant community. Jerome represents the quintessence of the entrepreneurial system in every phase of its life, from the Company down to the one-man grocery store, and would be anathema to today's social planners. However, the same rough and ready measures achieved prompt and effective community benefits that would get bogged down in the administrative red tape we now accept as God's will. They Came to Jerome will deal specifically with the people of the town itself, those who in the fullness of their pride named it The Billion Dollar Copper Camp long before the ultimate billion in production had been attained; the people who attempted to direct the town's growth, feed, clothe, and entertain its citizens, and time after time willed it to rise from the ashes. The period of history of Jerome covered herein begins with the first settlement at the base of Cleopatra Hill and ends with the great depression and the passing into other hands of the properties of Senator William A. Clark. Those were the days of pulsing and sometimes turbulent action of an intensity not experienced in the more seetled days of succeeding decades. Read more