Greed Brings Grief To The Whole Family

When Brian and I were in Arizona, we visited Jerome, a billion dollar copper camp located high on the top of Cleopatra Hill. It was founded in 1876 and grew to become, at one time, the fourth largest city in the Arizona territory, producing about 3 million pounds of copper per month. People came to Jerome from all over the world to find work and a new way of life. In the early 1920s, its population exceeded 10 000.

Today the mines are silent and Jerome is now the largest ghost town in the United States. Less than 450 people live there currently.

This is the man-basket that lowered and raised the miners to and from the underground mine tunnels.

The man-basket was actually located inside this head frame.

The ore was then hauled to the surface by tram cars on rail tracks.


The turquoise in this rock is copper aluminium phosphate. Turquoise is usually cut into precious stones or beads to make jewellery. Incidentally, while I was in Arizona, I bought from a Navajo Indian a beautiful necklace he had made out of little turquoise stones. It has great value to me because I enjoyed so much talking to him and having him share with me his family history.

As Brian and I were touring the Jerome museum, my husband noticed this plaque. It is in memory of Robert E. Ladd, the supervisor of Jerome State Historic Park when it opened on October 16, 1965. I thought this fact was interesting because my maiden name is Ladd.

However, with greed comes evil, and, disturbingly, Jerome was known as one of the wickedest towns in the West.

"Greed brings grief to the whole family."

Proverbs 15:27 (NLT)

The Bible says we must be on guard against every kind of greed, because life is not measured by the possessions we own.

"Then he said,

'Beware!

Guard against every kind of greed.

Life is not measured by how much you own.'"

Luke 12:15 (NLT)