Jerome, Arizona: Down Main Street meander the town donkey and her itinerant owner, who parks her in front of a cafe while he drops in for a cup of coffee. Soon the donkey, whose name is Jill, has her snout pressed against the window of the cafe, startling diners and shaking water glasses with her jet-engine braying for her beloved companion.
This is classic Jerome, and it's just this kind of anachronistic funkiness that fascinates tourists and even lures in the occasional resident.
"Jerome: We're all here, 'cause we're not all there!" proclaims a local bumper sticker, and nobody seems inclined to argue.
Snugged into the side of Cleopatra Hill at 5,200 feet up, just about six miles from Cottonwood, Jerome once boasted 15,000 residents when the copper mines were at their peak production, around 1929. This urban center was bustling around the clock, supporting three shifts of miners working, eating, gambling, drinking, working, drinking some more, and visiting the local houses of ill repute. The Great Depression put a damper on the mining industry, which enjoyed a brief revival during World War II, but then fizzled out more or less for good in the early 50s. By then Jerome, the
"Wickedest Town in Arizona," became the quietest town in Arizona, dwindling to perhaps 50 residents. In the 60s and 70s, counter-culture types found a hillside haven in Jerome, buying houses for a song, or sometimes just taking over the more neglected homes, and the town began building its repu- tation as an artists' colony, ghost town, and just a good place to hang out undetected.
