THE Trip, Jerome Arizona, The Mining Stuff, The "Slide", AND - -

Copyright 2011, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Continuing our tour of Jerome Arizona:

Because this is mining country, you just know they are gonna have examples of equipment displayed.  Man enjoyed all of this, I had little interest, but, still took a photo or two, for him, don't cha know.  So, this is a rocker shovel and dragline.  Me thinks this is the rocker shovel part?? It weighs about 4,200 pounds...

According to the sign nearby: "When the bucket is loaded with rubble, the operator actuates the bucket drive motor to exert force on the rocker pull chain, which is attached near the outer end of the rocker arms. The rocker arms roll the bucket upward toward the rear of the machine so that it maximizes the initial lift force on the bucket. As the bucket is thrown rearward, its vertical velocity decreases, and its horizontal velocity increases until the rocker arms strike stock-absorbing stops on the frame. When the bucket stops, the contents are flung into an attached mine car."

OKKKKKKKK, IF you say so!!!!  Fling away!  Like I said, Man enjoyed this stuff.

We happened upon the Mine Museum, the price of entry was right, and in we went.  It is well done, nice displays, a mix of the human story and the story of mining.  How bout this sign, sitting on the street??  WOW!

Here is the other half, sitting beside a car, you can see how large it really is:

Inside the museum they had a section darkened so they could do a display on what it was like (I imagine only sorta what it was like, eh?) down in a mine.  For example, the elevator, err cage:

So, part one of the story of Jerome is mining, part two may be the "Slide".  It took place during the 1920's.  Seems the miners were a bit too aggressive??  From a sign at the Miner Museum we learn:

"Jerome seemed to be on the move when a steam shovel hit a misfired coyote hole on November 23, 1926. This caused movement along the prominent Verde Fault."

According to Webster's Online Dictionary, a coyote hole is,  "A small tunnel driven horizontally into the rock at right angles to the face of the quarry. It has two or more crosscuts driven from it parallel to the face. It is in the ends of these crosscuts that the explosive charge is generally placed, and the remaining space in the tunnel is filled up with rock, sand, timbers, or concrete, to act as stemming or tamping. Same as gopher hole."

Apparently the Verde Fault runs through Jerome proper, I am not much of a geologist, and my attempts to "google" where the Verde Fault in fact does lie found a bunch of really technical articles, interesting but, not what I was looking for.  This page, however, does help  me some, and it shows Jerome and the Verde Fault in the 4th stage.

So, they used so much dynamite that they actually shook up a natural fault nearby.  I am having a bit of trouble wrapping my imagination around this. Amazing stuff this.  I believe some of the locals also explained that there were so many mine shafts, so deep in the earth that the miners had actually weakened the hill/mountain.  That is a bit amazing too.  At any rate, for whatever reason, Jerome was sliding off the hill side.  Many buildings were  a total loss and some are now parking lots.

Then there are these, found during our walking tour of town, left standing for us to stare at, photograph and wonder about:

Almost looks as if someone painted this recently, doesn't it?

Below, the sliding jail.  A nice summary of the story of the sliding jail can be found here.

Ohhhh, back at that Mine Museum, I found this interesting photo, which I just really loved, irony packed, no words required.

Man and I would drive to or through Jerome three times during our stay at nearby Camp Verde.   Each trip was interesting, Sony and I had a good time!  Click Click!



* For some more fun reading on Jerome and it's wild stories, you might like this site.  They have a fun map here, even shows the sliding jail, where it started and where it ended up (scroll down just a little for the map, split in two).  And, oh, how fun is this, they have their own blog??  Last entry July 22, 2009.
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