The informant travelled to Jerome, Arizona with is wife sometime in 2011.

From their visit they learned that Jerome used to be a mining village. One day, there was an economic crisis because people could not find any more resources in the mines. As a result, most of the people that lived in Jerome fled the town. The people that remained were too poor too move so they remained in Jerome till their deaths. Now, the town is still desolate and they say that the town is haunted. The old houses that used to line the streets are now storefronts and two separate shop owners told the informant and his wife that they hear people talking and walking upstairs at night.

The informant says that Jerome has become a tourist attraction. He said that the town provides tourists with a kitschy experience – as you’re driving towards the desolate town there are abandoned shacks, old signs, and even a skeleton. In the town there are several half built buildings leaving the impression that it really was abandoned. The informant implied that the town’s only purpose today is to cater towards what the tourists wanted to see – being a ghost town. It is interesting that even the shop keepers in this town – the informant said there were only tourist shops – are committed to keeping Jerome’s reputation as a ghost town alive. I wonder if the shopkeepers actually hear creaks and talking, but what’s even more fascinating is that this is a whole entire town that flourishes off of it’s narrative.