Jerome Group LLC history

He came to Detroit from New York in 1828 and not only found work surveying and charting the streets of Detroit, but also nearly all the villages and townships.

"In 1831, Edwin and his survey party were headed toward what is now Wisconsin, to lay out the land," George Sr. says as he begins a favorite family tale. "It was the time of the Black Hawk Indian Wars, and since roads did not exist, the party was traveling by way of the Indian trails.

Cleopatra Hill is in central Arizona, 20 miles northeast of Prescott, the capital of the new Arizona Territory in 1863.

Camp Verde, a United States Army post after 1865, was about 15 miles southeast of Cleopatra Hill.

Jerome's modern history began in 1876 when three prospectors staked claims on rich copper deposits.

He built his Hotel Jerome in 1889 during Aspen’s “Silver Boom”, it was Aspen’s first luxury hotel.

United Verde employed over 300 men by 1890 as miners, smelter workers, and teamsters.

The town’s population reached upwards of 16,000 and it was the “Crown Jewel” of Aspen up into 1893 when the Sherman Act put silver in decline, the mining industry, and the city of Aspen with it.

The April 1894 fire began in the early morning hours.

Jerome first received rail service in 1895.

A blaze on Christmas Eve 1897 burned down a block in the notorious “tenderloin district” including a bordello, four saloons, and a boarding house/ restaurant.

The fire of May 1899 started in the Leland Hotel and spread quickly through downtown and a new hospital.

In 1905, the Jerome Town Council even used their power to ban women from saloons.

In 1906, the voters used their power to change the Council and the women were back in the saloons !

By 1909 the postmaster, Frank E. Smith, was earning $1,800 and had a clerk to assist him, at a salary of $400 per year.

In 1912, James S. Douglas purchased and began development of the Little Daisy Mine.

James S. Douglas built the Mansion on the hill just above his Little Daisy Mine in 1916.

The hotel survived the “Quiet Years” as Aspen’s only hotel, sometimes boardinghouse, and in 1918 as a morgue.

In 1925 two hundred and fifty pounds of dynamite were used to blast loose copper ore in the Black Pit portion of the mine.

United Verde built a new hospital in town in 1926, a five-story poured concrete structure.

Copper production peaked in 1929, but the Depression and low grade ore deposits reversed the fortunes of the town.

In 1930 the post office moved to a building on Hull Avenue known as the Jerome Garage Building, owned by John and Mabel Wagner.

In 1936 Billy Fiske built the first ski lodge, the boat tow on Ajax, and initiated the turnaround of Aspen.

The Little Daisy shut down in 1938.

When the Great Depression hit, the price of copper began to decline sharply, and in 1939 United Verde Extension Company was dissolved.

His dad was taken to the hospital with a broken back from a mining accident in the 1940’s.

Z-Group Architects is a direct outgrowth of Caudill Gustafson and Associates, Architects, who opened shop in Aspen back in 1952.

An enterprising group of locals that stuck around formed the Jerome Historical Society and halted demolition of the town’s buildings in 1956.

In 1975 when Postmaster Beverly Sullivan resigned, the United States Postal Service announced the closure of the Jerome post office in an effort to cut costs.

An old mining engineer living in Jerome, looked up in 1994 and saw the old hospital FULLY lit up for the first time in 44 years.