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Built in 1898 by David
Connor, the Connor Hotel of Jerome has a colorful past, ranging
from the heights of luxury to the depths of squalor and back again.
Originally designed with 20 rooms upstairs, this first-class lodging
establishment also offered a barroom, card rooms, and billiard tables
on the first floor. Rooms were rented on the "European plan",
for the princely sum of $1.00 per night. The Connor's telephone
number was 8.
The stone foundations were quarried
from the hills around Jerome, and the brick was fired in nearby
Cottonwood, in the yard of Messrs. Britton and Sharp.
Before the turn of the century, David Connor's hotel had burned
to the ground twice, along with many other fine buildings in Jerome's
crowded downtown. David Connor was fortunate in that he was one
of the only two business owners in town to carry insurance, in the
handsome amount of $14,500. As a result, he was immediately able
to rebuild the hotel, unlike many other buildings lost to fire in
the conflagrations that swept Jerome before the turn of the century.
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After it reopened in August of 1899, it enjoyed
a heyday of being one of the finest lodging establishments in the booming
mining towns of the West. The hotel had its own bus for delivering guests
to the train depot, and was full to capacity much of the time. It was
one of the earliest buildings in Jerome to be fully wired for electricity,
and each room had a call bell for service.
The Connor Hotel in 1899 |
However, as the
fortunes of the mines waned, so waned the fortunes of the Connor
Hotel. In 1931, the hotel closed. David Connor's son and heir continued
to rent out the shops downstairs, but the rooms sat idle upstairs.
Through the ensuing decades, various merchants renting space in
the Connor eked a living out of the dwindling residents remaining
in Jerome. When the mines closed in the 1950s, the town came close
to becoming a real and true ghost town.
Soon thereafter, the town began to attract
some slight notoriety for the dubious distinction of being a ghost
town, and the merchants shifted gear to try and make a living from
the scant tourist traffic wending its way through the formerly bustling
town.
As the town began to attract counter-culture
folks and sightseers in the 1960s and 1970s, the hotel entered its
second heyday, this time as a low budget flophouse of sorts, which
was quite popular, especially with people having a night on the
town.
In fact, many people still remember those
days with a good bit of nostalgia. The rooms were twice their original
size (still are, in fact), and not glamorous, but definitely the
place to be in Jerome.
Well, pesky safety concerns dictated that
the hotel close its doors again in the 1980s. You know, those unpleasant
little issues like sprinkler system, fire escape, and adequate wiring,
or the lack thereof.
The rooms sat vacant and derelict for the
rest of the century, until the owners bit the bullet and embarked
upon the major project of correcting the safety issues and providing
the amenities and creature comforts that today's guests have come
to expect.
Now, with a new fire escape, fire sprinkler
system, and safe new wiring in place, not to mention many other
modern conveniences, it is one of the most comfortable pieces of
history that the West has to offer! |
Jerome's Main Street in the
1930's |
"Kito's Place," 1941, was located
in the present day hotel lobby. |
There is one story about the hotel's
electrician. He was there first guest and stayed in room 1.
The night started off when he heard whispers and women laughing.
As it got later he felt a chill starting at the end of the bed and
it creeped up over him. He spent the rest of the night in his van
because he was freaked out.
In room 2, objects tend to move around. There used to be an old
chair in front of the window sitting by the desk. The chair always
seemed to be pushed into the desk, out of the range of the window,
even though people purposely moved it away from the desk.
One guest had an experience of her
make-up bag moving to a different location. She recalled placing
the bad on the sink before leaving for dinner and when they returned
home for the evening, she found it on the bathroom floor. First
thinking that they were being forgetful, they decided to watch the
videotape that they had recorded of their room |
before leaving for dinner. The bag was on the
sink.
The maid has also had experiences in the bathroom of room
2. She will put things in their specific places, like glasses or towels
and come back minutes later and they will be moved. She said it happens
three or four times each instance.
In Room 4...people hear a dog's growl coming from underneath
the door and it is sometimes accompanied by an old man coughing.
We arrived in the morning and were given
a tour of the hotel by the owner who took us to each of the rooms where
paranormal activity has been reported. While we were in Room 1 the armoire
doors opened by themselves just above the Spirit Room bar. A brief electromagnetic
field of 4 milligauss was picked up on the EMF detector of the investigator
closest to the armoire. This event was witnessed by entire Team and attempts
to replicate the event were unsuccessful.
Just after the armoire doors had opened,
a photograph taken towards the room's doorway reveled an unusual image.
The origin or cause of this image is unknown. The second photograph taken
had nothing unusual in it.
Several high A/C magnetic fields were
found in room 2, mostly near the bathroom. The fields reached normal background
at one foot, and they are probably caused by poorly shielded electrical
wiring.
Photographs
Click on the thumbnails
to view the larger image
Room 1
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Room 1 , Unusual photo
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hallway, second floor
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Room 6
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Room 6
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Room 2
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Room 1
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Second unusual object
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Video
Click the thumbnail to
view the video clip
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Humor
When hot
maids get in the way.....
Nothing serious here, mostly an
inside joke. It can be awfully hard to concentrate when a good looking
maid keeps on distracting you. |
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