4 Best Sights in North-Central Arizona, Arizona

Of the three mining museums in town, the most inclusive is part of Jerome State Historic Park. At the edge of town, signs on AZ 89A will direct you to the turnoff for the park, reached by a short, precipitous road. The museum occupies the 1916 mansion of Jerome's mining king, Dr. James "Rawhide Jimmy" Douglas Jr., who purchased Little Daisy Mine in 1912. You can tour the mansion and see tools and heavy equipment used to grind ore; some minerals are on display, but accounts of the town's wilder elements—such as the House of Joy brothel—are not so prominently featured. Just outside the mansion/park gates is Audrey Head Frame Park, where you can peer 1,900 feet down into the Daisy Mineshaft.

Run by the Jerome Historical Society, the Mine Museum in downtown Jerome focuses on the social history of miners in the area. The museum's collection of mining stock certificates alone is worth the (small) price of admission—the amount of money that changed hands in this town 100 years ago boggles the mind.

This institution, founded in 1928, is respected worldwide for its research and for its collections centering on the natural and cultural history of the Colorado Plateau. Among the permanent exhibitions are an extensive collection of Navajo rugs and a Hopi kiva (men's ceremonial chamber).

A gallery devoted to area geology is usually a hit with children: it includes a life-size model dilophosaurus, a carnivorous dinosaur that once roamed northern Arizona. Outdoors a life-zone exhibit shows the changing vegetation from the bottom of the Grand Canyon to the highest peak in Flagstaff. A nature trail, open only in summer, heads down across a small stream into a canyon and up into an aspen grove. Also in summer the museum hosts exhibits and the works of Native American artists, whose wares are sold in the well-stocked museum gift shop.

Local pioneer history is documented at this remarkable museum, the creative vision of historian and poet Sharlot Hall. Along with an original 1863 ponderosa pine log cabin and the mansion which housed the territorial governor in 1864, the parklike museum complex contains several additional restored period homes and a transportation exhibit housed in a former auto repair shop circa 1937. Territorial times are the focus, but natural history and artifacts of the area's prehistoric peoples are also on display.