Jerome Blast Furnace

This furnace is a relic of the copper that made Jerome. It was one of a pair on the Hampton Lode of the United Verde Copper Company, fired up in May 1888 to smelt ore on the mountainside, with a capacity near sixty tons a day. Smelting beside the mine choked the town in sulfurous smoke and strained the cramped terrain, and in 1915 the operation moved down to a modern plant at Clarkdale on the valley floor. The old furnace was left in place, a rusting monument to the smoke that once meant wages.

What the plaque says

This is one of the two old furnaces found in place on the Hampton Lode, United Verde Copper Company Mines, at Jerome, Arizona. Operation of this furnace and the other began on May 22, 1888, with a maximum capacity of about 60 tons of ore per day. The furnaces were retired when the new Clarkdale plant was blown in on May 28, 1915.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Jerome — steps away
  The billion-dollar copper camp clinging to Cleopatra Hill — now the largest ghost town in America
• Tuzigoot — 5.2 mi
  A hilltop Sinagua pueblo over the Verde, dug out of the ground in the Depression
• Montezuma Castle — 18 mi
  A five-story Sinagua cliff dwelling, misnamed for an emperor who was never here
• Sedona — 22 mi
  Red-rock skyline, Little Hollywood, and the town Sedona Schnebly gave her name to

More markers nearby

• Bartlett Hotel — steps away
• Husbands' Alley — steps away
• Jerome's Famous Sliding Jail — steps away
• The Audrey Shaft and UVX Operations — 0.3 mi