Arizona’s most vertical town hangs off a cliff at 5,200 feet above the Verde Valley

It’s perched a mile high

Jerome sits at 5,200 feet on the steep side of Cleopatra Hill, about 100 miles north of Phoenix in Arizona’s Black Hills.

The town tilts toward the Verde Valley below, and from the right spot, you can pick out Sedona’s red rocks in the distance.

You reach it along State Route 89A, a winding mountain road from Sedona that takes about 40 minutes.

Every curve opens up another view of the valley floor, and the town itself looks like it might slide off the hill at any moment. That’s part of the draw.

Copper built it, artists saved it

Miners staked the first claims on Cleopatra Hill back in the 1870s.

A New York financier named Eugene Jerome helped bankroll the United Verde Copper Company, and the town took his name. By the 1920s, about 15,000 people packed into Jerome, making it one of Arizona’s largest cities.

Then the mines closed in 1953, and the population dropped below 100. Artists and musicians found the empty buildings in the 1960s and started fixing them up.

Jerome earned National Historic District status in 1967.

Steep streets lined with old saloons

Main Street runs through the center of town, and galleries, shops and cafes fill the buildings on both sides. But getting around Jerome means climbing.

Narrow stairways connect the streets, and the hills will remind your legs they exist. Many buildings sit at odd angles because the ground underneath keeps shifting.

Former saloons, bordellos and opium dens now hold art studios and restaurants. You can cover the whole town on foot in a few hours, but take your time on the inclines.

A mansion built from 80,000 adobe bricks

James S. Douglas put up this house in 1916 on the hill above his Little Daisy Mine. Workers made all 80,000 adobe bricks right on the building site.

Inside, Douglas had a wine cellar, a billiard room, a marble shower and a central vacuum system.

Today the mansion operates as a state park museum filled with photographs, mining artifacts, minerals and a 3-D model showing the town and its underground mines.

Step onto the grounds, and the Verde Valley, Oak Creek Canyon and the San Francisco Peaks spread out in front of you.

Stand over a 1,900-foot mine shaft

Audrey Headframe Park sits right next to the state park, and it costs nothing to walk in. The Audrey Headframe went up in 1918 and still stands as Arizona’s oldest and largest wooden headframe.

A glass platform lets you look straight down the mine shaft, which drops 1,900 feet into the earth. That’s 650 feet deeper than the Empire State Building is tall.

Around the headframe, you can check out original ore cars, mining equipment and an authentic miners’ cage that carried workers into the dark.

The jail slid 225 feet down the hill

Jerome built its town jail in 1905 as part of a larger wood and tin building. For decades, it stayed put.

Then in 1938, dynamite blasts from the nearby mines rattled the ground hard enough to break the concrete cell block loose. It crept 225 feet downhill and landed in the middle of Hull Avenue.

The town didn’t move the jail back. They just rerouted the road around it.

The cell block still sits exactly where it stopped, and people line up to photograph it every day.

More than 21 galleries pack a tiny town

Jerome holds more than 21 galleries and studios within its few steep blocks.

The Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery sits inside the historic Hotel Jerome building and carries work from about 30 local artists.

You can browse painting, pottery, glass, jewelry, photography, woodwork and blacksmithing all in one stop. Prices range from affordable handmade crafts to high-end fine art.

Many of these galleries fill restored historic buildings, so the spaces themselves give you something to look at between the pieces on the walls.

First Saturday art walks run until 8 p.m.

On the first Saturday of every month, galleries and studios keep their doors open from 5 to 8 p.m. A free shuttle runs between venues at opposite ends of town, which saves your legs on those hills.

You can talk to the artists, watch them work and catch live music along the way. Restaurants and tasting rooms run specials during the walk, so plan to eat while you’re out.

The event pulls people in from across northern Arizona, and the town fills up fast.

A former saloon holds the mine museum

The Jerome Historical Society opened this museum in the 1950s inside a former saloon at the corner of Main Street and Jerome Avenue.

Inside, you can see the tools miners carried underground: drills, carbide lamps and ore carts.

Household items and photographs from the mining days fill out the story of what daily life looked like when 15,000 people crowded this hillside.

Admission costs very little, and you can walk through the whole place in under an hour.

You can see three landmarks from one spot

Jerome’s perch on Cleopatra Hill gives you a front-row seat to the Verde Valley. On clear days, Sedona’s red rock formations show up to the east.

Look north and the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff rise above the horizon. Sycamore Canyon and Oak Creek Canyon fill in the gaps between them.

If you time it right and catch the sunset, warm light floods the valley floor and the rocks shift color. That alone is worth the drive up.

A five-story hospital turned hilltop hotel

The United Verde Hospital went up in 1926 as a five-story poured concrete building, and at the time, people called it one of the most modern hospitals in the western states. It served Jerome’s residents until 1950.

After sitting empty for years, the building became the Jerome Grand Hotel, planted at the top of the hill with valley views in every direction.

Travel guides mention it often for its history and its dramatic position above town. You can see it from almost anywhere in Jerome.

Crumbling ruins hide on every side street

Wander off Main Street and Jerome keeps giving. The old Jerome High School now holds artist studios inside the Jerome Art Center.

The House of Joy dates to 1898 and ranks among the town’s oldest surviving structures, now running as an art gallery.

Crumbling ruins and abandoned buildings line the side streets, each one a piece of the town’s mining past. The Connor Hotel burned down twice before they rebuilt it with stone and brick.

It still operates on Main Street today.

Visit Jerome on Arizona’s Route 89A

You can reach Jerome by heading north from Phoenix on State Route 89A. From Sedona, the drive takes about 40 minutes west through Cottonwood.

Coming from Prescott, you’re looking at roughly 35 miles northeast. Once you arrive, the whole town is walkable, but wear sturdy shoes because the streets climb hard.

Parking fills up on weekends and during events like the Art Walk, so arrive early if you want a spot close to Main Street.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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