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The Fashion Saloon, now the
Jerome mining museum, was Jerome’s largest and most elegant saloon.
First opened in the 1880’s, it burned several times until the proprietors,
Arthur Cordiner and J.S. Hoover, constructed the present building
in concrete in 1898.
The saloon is one of Jerome’s oldest buildings because it was one
of the few to survive the town’s last major fire, which devastated
the business district in 1899. In 1903, the Fashion Saloon expanded
into the adjacent building, now Paul and Jerry’s, and featured eleven
games of chance.
When saloons were outlawed in 1914, the building became a drugstore
and later a five –and-dime. In 1953, the Jerome Historical Society
turned the old Fashion Saloon into the mine museum.
The
reoccurrence of fires was commonly due to the use of kerosene lamps
or poor chimney structure. As for the exact reason each fire occurred,
stories often varied. The fire of Dec. 24, 1897, Christmas Eve,
has been told two ways.
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The
second story claims that a violent quarrel between a lover and his mistress
occurred whereas one of the parties picked up the lamp and threw it at
the other, setting the room on fire. Despite the story, the small fire
turned into a complete disaster. With houses and buildings so tightly
packed together, it wasn't’t long before the flames engulfed the whole
town.
Some in the town had become so accustomed to the
fires that when the third one broke out, there was hardly a stir. Especially
amongst those patronizing the local saloons. Newspaper articles say attendants
took their alcohol and poker game outside in order to continue their cavorting
while the town burned.
A later account of the story in a 1952 Verde Independent
stated, "before the ashes had stopped smoking, the Fashion Saloon
rolled a barrel of whiskey onto the street, knocked it in with a rock
and set up free drinks. There were no glasses. Drinkers reached in with
a copper dipper. Before the day was out, cap and faro games and roulette
wheels, carted from the flaming buildings into the street, were going
full blast."
Historical photos are thumbnailed.
Click on the photos above to see the larger image.
According
to a few locals, lights have been seen moving about inside the building
late at night. The museum is closed and the building is completely empty
when this occurs. Footsteps can be heard in the rear section of the building
and are often accompanied by a feeling of being watched.
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While
we were awaiting the arrival of the rest of the team, we decided
to visit the Jerome mining museum. During our visit, we discovered
that the building that houses the present day museum was once the
Fashion saloon. The ceiling of the building is very ornate, giving
away the grandeur of the building's past.
After
a short discussion, we decided to do a impromptu investigation of
the building that consisted of a quick sweep for D/C electromagnetic
fields accompanied with photography of the searched areas.
We
discovered one unusual EM field in the left rear corner of the building.
The field seemed to be attached to a storage container for a stretcher.
The
field fluctuated between 2 to 6 nt and did not have any kind of
pattern in its pulses. They appeared to be occurring randomly.
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Two
photographs taken in this area during the EM event reveled unusual images
in them. In the second image, the object is casting a shadow. Nothing
unusual was experienced by either investigator during the event. The rest
of the building contained normal EM levels for D/C.
We
returned to the Jerome Grand Hotel and showed the other team members the
photos. This might be a good place for a full up ghost hunt someday.
Photographs
Click
on the thumbnails to view the larger image
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EM readings of 3 nt
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Unusual photo 1
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Unusual photo 2
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EM readings of 4 nt
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EM readings (2 nt)
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EM readings (6 nt)
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View of the stretcher locker
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The locker and mine car
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Two
unusual images were taken during this ghost hunt, both while D/C
EM events were occurring. The object in the photos clearly casts
a shadow, especially in the second image, and the position of the
object changes during the cycling time of the digital camera.
The
photographs taken before and after these two are perfectly normal,
ruling out moisture or condensation as a cause. The photographs
were also shown to three other team members before the CD was finalized
using the camera's playback function. This is a protocol we often
use to prevent accusations that the photograph had been manipulated
in photo shop or some other imaging program.
The
EM field in the area where the photographs were taken was D/C with
a power level that fluctuated between 2 to 6 nanotesla. The readings
seemed to be associated with an old locker that was used to store
a stretcher. The locker was opened an examined and nothing was located
that could produce an electromagnetic field. the locker itself was
made from wood and the stretcher was metallic. However, the stretcher
itself did not give off any EM radiation.
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