HUMOR

destination JEROME'S Mining-town Spirit is Underscored by the Colorful History of the JAMES DOUGLAS Family

GROWING FROM CLUSTERS OF CANVAS-WALLED shacks into a prosperous city, then from a ghost town to an artists' colony, the mining town of Jerome still clings tenaciously to the steep grades of Mingus Mountain. Crowding the mountain's folds and rises are brick-and-board buildings dating back to the mining heyday when Jerome, population 20,000, bustled as the commercial center of the Verde Valley. On a hillside at the edge of town stands the 8,000-square-foot, two-story adobe mansion built in 1916 by James S. Douglas, four years after he opened Jerome's second bonanza mine, the Little Daisy. Today, as Jerome State Historic Park, the mansion houses a museum of photographs, artifacts and a video devoted to Jerome's history, to mining and to the Douglas family. Known from childhood as "Jimmy," Douglas came from a mining heritage. His father, also named James Douglas, served as president of the Copper Queen Consolidated Mine in Bisbee and of Phelps Dodge Corp. But the younger Douglas made his own way, working up through various Phelps Dodge enterprises for two decades. He became a shrewd businessman in mining and banking, married gentle Josalee Williams of Bisbee and raised two sons. Through his own venture, the Little Daisy, he became one of the richest men in the state, yet history views Douglas with a jaundiced eye. One contemporary remembered that he "could be the kindest, most considerate and charming of men; then, suddenly, he would change into the most caustic, abrasive individual I have ever known." Others

observed that Douglas had a “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” character. His eldest son, Lewis, recalled that he didn't know anyone who had the sheer power of personality that his father had.

While managing mines in northern Mexico, Douglas acquired the name “Rawhide Jimmy,” perhaps because the miners found his unyielding nature as tough as rawhide.

An insistent taskmaster, he imposed profit-making efficiency on marginal mining operations and applied his convictions as law. Once, while inspecting a railroad bed, Douglas found an unused spike beside the track. At the laborers' camp, he raved on the subject of waste and carelessness. When the astute foreman replied, he thanked Douglas for finding the spike, then assured the boss that he'd had three men looking for it for two days.

Douglas insisted from his sons the same hard work and discipline he demanded of his employees. Once, to punish his son Lewis, Douglas took him to a demolished schoolhouse and ordered him to “take out every last nail from every last board.” To teach Lewis the meaning of hard work, his father arranged that he work as a mucker for his first position in the mines, a backbreaking laborer's job.

Applying these attitudes in his marriage produced a fragile relationship. Douglas dictated all family decisions, rarely consulting Josalee and chastising her for spoiling his sons. Lewis, as an adult, once refused to see his father until he treated Josalee more kindly.

Despite the harsh side of his nature, employees worked to meet Douglas' demand for excellence. Devoted to him, Josalee wrote in her letters of missing him during the long absences that business required. Lewis and brother Jimmy, younger by five years, developed affection as well as respect for their father.

Douglas served as a delegate to the state's first Constitutional Convention and remained active in state and national politics. In 1904, the Bisbee Daily Review described him as a “hustling businessman, easy of approach,” and “with a liberal hand for anything that is of benefit to the city, county and country.”

Douglas willingly and anonymously shared

his good fortune with untold recipients, and he never forgot a friend. In 1947, Douglas received a note from a widow informing him of her husband's death. Douglas recalled that the man had engineered the train from Seligman to Prescott in 1890, had been