By Bob Ross

My mother Grace Baldwin, third generation of our family in Yavapai County, graduated from Prescott High School in 1917 and, after a time as secretary in a local law office, moved to Jerome to work as secretary to the school superintendent, J. O. Mullen. In November 1923, Grace married mining engineer, Frank Ross, my dad, in Prescott. Dad was of the southern Oregon pioneer Ross family and their marriage brought together descendents of two main trails in America’s movement westward during the 1800s. Frank’s grandfather had been elected captain of his forty-wagon train during the 1847 trip west on the Oregon Trail. Frank, as a young man having studied mine engineering, was summoned to Jerome to work at the copper mine.

In early 1883, the town had been named for New York financier, Eugene Jerome, a cousin of the mother of Winston Churchill. That’s an interesting story in itself involving some of Arizona’s far-sighted businessmen, politicians and geologists who raised capital to form a copper mining and smelting venture in Yavapai County, the United Verde Copper Company.

In the early 1920s and prior, the United Verde Copper Company in Jerome made it a point to hire college trained mining engineers to implement the newest technology in mining and smelting. The young engineers, including sons and grandsons of western pioneers and old-time prospectors, married the young school teachers and nurses, including daughters and granddaughters of western pioneers, and they started their families in the heart of Yavapai County. Jerome drew teachers, nurses and mining engineers from all parts of the country. From Cornwall, England came the underground hardrock miners known as "cousin Jacks" who formed the solid core of hardrock mining men in America. They could be found in Michigan, Nevada, California, Montana, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. They proudly supported their families on wages of $5.50 per day.

Jerome was a busy place in the 1920s. In far away New York City, shares of mining company stock showing the name "Jerome" or "Verde District" immediately caught the attention of stockbrokers. A second big profitable mine in Jerome was the United Verde Extension, known as The Little Daisy, owned by James "Rawhide Jimmy" Douglas. In 1926, his elder son, Lewis, was Arizona’s sole member of the House of Representatives in Washington, D. C. President Truman appointed Lewis to the post of Ambassador to England in 1947.

I was born at the United Verde Copper Company Hospital in Jerome in February of 1926, 4th generation in Yavapai County. I attended Jerome public schools and graduated from the high school overlooking the Verde Valley. In my on-going research into Yavapai County history, I often come upon dates and places in my reading which corroborate and put into proper perspective family stories I heard as a youngster in Jerome. The history of the old mining town goes farther back in time than the 1870s…to the year 1583. In the 1981 pamphlet, "From the Ground Up, Stories of Arizona’s Mines and Early Discoveries," written by former governor Jack Williams and published by Phelps Dodge Corporation, and also in Herbert V. Young’s 1964 book, "Ghosts of Cleopatra Hill, Men and Legends of Old Jerome," published by the Jerome Historical Society, there is documented evidence that Spaniards traveling along the Verde River turned westward to investigate what they had heard during their search for gold. The Spaniards, led by Capt. Antonio de Espejo, found the Indian diggings on the side of the mountain where Jerome is now and left a wooden cross in the workings, with a date carved on it of the 8th day of May in the year 1583. This cross, and another, was found by scouts and prospectors from Fort Verde about 293 years later! This once remote area of our county is now a major tourist attraction and it’s my hometown.

My daughter Kimberly and her two daughters, all Arizona born, represent our 5th and 6th generation in this area. We are all reminded of our roots and give a tribute of thanks to our family pioneers of Yavapai County.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(bus5032p) Reuse only by permission.
The Clark Street Grammar School shown here in the 1930s was built in the 1920s. No longer used as a school, it has been restored as the City Hall and Library for the Town of Jerome. The school thrived until the mines closed and the people moved away.

Sharlot Hall Museum Photograph Call Number:(pb164f44ci11) Reuse only by permission.