ArizonaRealCountry.com 15 October 2017 Cinnamon Rolls RV and HORSE TRAILER PARKING OPEN 7 DAYS ALWAYS FRESH, ALWAYS DELICIOUS Sundaes Sandwiches Catering Serving Wickenburg Dessert Before Dinner Since 1980 CHAPARRAL HOMEMADE ICE CREAM ICE CREAM 472 E. WICKENBURG WAY WICKENBURG, AZ 85390 SWEET TREATS, SANDWICHES AND MORE... ” NO DINNER UNTIL YOU EAT YOUR DESSERT ” 928.684.3252 chaparral-icecream.com 10712 W. Bell Rd. Sun City, AZ 85351 (in Bell Camino Center) 623-933-0034 ConsigningWomenAZ.com Clothing from the Golf Course to the Dance Floor and a Little Bit of Cowgirl in Between! Bring in This Ad for $5.00 OFF Your $30.00 Purchase! DISASTERS RIDDLED JEROME’S PAST CLAPBOARD AND CANVAS They were built of clapboard, canvas, or just mere tents. Connor’s Saloon, on the corner of Main and Jerome Avenue, was a single-story adobe then. It was in a wooden building behind the Connor that the fire of 1897 started. It was Christmas Eve. A prostitute in a bawdy house became angry with a customer. She threw a lantern at him. That Christmas Eve most of the wood and canvas commercial buildings in Jerome’s business district were reduced to ashes as flames swept through the rickety buildings. The buildings lost weren’t much. It didn’t take much to rebuild them. Twelve buildings were lost altogether and they were quickly rebuilt in the early months of 1898. BUSINESS DROVE REBUILDING The four saloons, two restaurants and several houses of prostitution soon were back in business. Tradition has it that the bawdy houses lost to flames had no trouble getting volunteers from the men in town to rebuild what was called the “Tenderloin District” above the Connor. It was business as usual in Jerome until September 11, 1898. Just 10 months after the Christmas Eve fire, a drunken Austrian is said to have awoken to the chill of the early fall morning and got some kerosene to start a fire in his quarters. He lived at the upper end of Hull Avenue. Having poured too much kerosene in this stove to start it, he soon had more fire than he wanted. The flames spread rapidly. Soon the entire Jerome business district was in flames. There was an inadequate water supply to fight the flames. Dynamite was used in an attempt to blow some buildings in the path of the fire to halt the flames. A morning breeze defeated all efforts to save the town. The flames swept down Hull and Main, up the hill to just below the school house and down the hill to the hogback. LEVELED AGAIN, AID SPURNED Jerome’s business district was leveled. Wagon loads of aid came up from the good citizens of Prescott. United Verde Mine boss H.J. Allen refused it. Jerome would handle its own affairs, said he. Most visitors to Jerome today who stand on Main Street in front of the Turquoise Spider or the Mile High Grill & Inn have little idea of the trauma that occurred there through the years. The buildings behind them are mostly from 1899 or after the turn of the century. In front of them, where cars park across the street, there once was a line of stores, a theater, and other business establishments. It was 1897 when Jerome had its first major disaster. The buildings were nothing like the turn of the century buildings that line Main Street today. continued on page 16 Above left: Lyric Theatre with its white brick on ornate front, housed the Palace Barber Shop (left) and Jerome Baking Co. (right). There are indications ground already was shifting below when the photo was taken. Two long cracks appear on front above and to the left of second story windows. Lyric was on side of Main that slide down the hill in late 1920’s. Above right: Some houses in the path of the slide buckled grotesquely as the ground they were built on moved slowly downhill.