Itinerant's Itinerary:  Remembering Jerome

A few years back we rode into Jerome, Arizona by motorcycle.  We were on our way back to Phoenix from a visit to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, riding a BMW K1200. 

Jerome is an old historic mining town and a great place to visit on two wheels.  It was established as a company mining town in the late 1800s to house the workers in the nearby United Verde Mine, which produced more than 1 billion dollars in copper, gold and silver over the next 70 years.  Like many Old West mining towns, Jerome became notorious for prostitution, gambling, and vice.  In fact in 1903, the New York Sun newspaper proclaimed Jerome to be "the wickedest town in the West".  Today Jerome is a tourist destination that capitalizes on that Old West reputation.  The town is a designated Historic District and National Historic Landmark.

Jerome, along with Bisbee Arizona, is also famous for a series of miners’ strikes in 1917, organized in part by the Industrial Workers of the World.  In July of that year, armed agents of the mine owners roughly rounded up all the suspected labor union organizers and unionized miners, forced them on to railroad cattle cars, and shipped them out of town, letting them out near Kingman, Arizona. They were warned to stay away from Jerome on threat of death. This event is now known as the Jerome Deportation. 

Workers experienced the same fate in the Bisbee Deportation

Jerome sits near the top of Cleopatra Hill, and the ride from the desert spirals up the hill into town with extraordinary views along the way.  However, the two lane twister back down on a motorcycle means that you should stay sober in Jerome.

We rode through town at noon on a Saturday and, when we heard a live blues band rocking, stopped at a bar with dozens of motorcycles lined up out front.  We had lunch and enjoyed the band with its female lead singer who had a raw, driving voice.  The bar was in one of the historic town buildings and claimed to have been a continuously functioning bar since the 1890s.  It certainly looked authentic with a wood floor and two story ceiling, a bar along the side of the room, and a staircase that led over the bar to a mezzanine with four or five rooms where perhaps Miss Kitty worked in the old days.

Shortly after we arrived, the singer introduced a song dedicated to the “wedding couple” and proceeded to point out newlyweds and their wedding party who were celebrating along the back of the room, and who were all outfitted in outlaw biker garb.  After the singer finished her song, she announced that the wedding couple would now leave for their honeymoon.  Sure enough, the couple rose and together climbed the staircase over the bar going into one of the upstairs rooms with a farewell wave, to the great cheering and applause of the wedding party and everyone else in the bar.

The band then went on playing for about an hour, at which time the newlyweds reappeared above the bar and came back down to join their wedding party celebration, to even greater cheering and applause from us bar patrons.

We left the bar when the wedding party was leaving, so we were able to see the groom, and perhaps the best man, carry out the bride, who was now stumbling drunk, and strap her onto the back of a big Harley.  I remembered the challenging ride up the hill to Jerome, and asked the two guys strapping in the bride whether it was wise to ride this way, and that maybe staying overnight in Jerome might be a better idea.  They politely but firmly told me that it was no problem, that they do this all the time, and that I should mind my own business. 

I have often wondered about that couple’s ride down the mountain and about their future life together.  We were only passing bikes in the afternoon, but I admired their bravado and the apparent joy of their “honeymoon”.  I hope they made it down the hill and beyond.  So, to the bride and groom, belated congratulations and best wishes.