It's 6 a.m. and the only sign of life are the headlights from a stream of vehicles weaving in and out of sight as they make their way up four miles of switchbacks. Then the gurgling sound of diesel four-by-four trucks builds as the vehicles reach town, stop, and make a left turn, pass the Connor Hotel and onto Perkinsfield Road and onto the second stretch of switchbacks over Mingus Mountain.

Then silence settles back over the sleeping town of Jerome for a few minutes longer, till the incessant crowing of the town rooster heralds the first glimmer of daylight from behind the San Francisco Mountains.

Within a few hours, there will be a steady stream of cars making the four-mile trek up the mountain to Jerome, Arizona, to claim one of the limited parking spots. There will be tourists everywhere weaving their way up and down stairwells from one terrace to another, and in and out of gift shops and galleries and restaurants. By early evening they will make their way down the mountain to more generic, perhaps more luxurious, no doubt more modern accommodations than the 100-year-old or older boarding houses, hospitals, and brothels that have been converted into hotels.

The best part of a day is now, before daybreak, before the influx of tourists, and before townsfolk disappear up or down to whatever private places they go to in the evening.

I recently spent 12 days in Arizona and I fell in love with Jerome—the town of Jerome that is, a small former copper mining town that rests precariously halfway up Mingus Mountain, north of Phoenix and west of Sedona, overlooking the Verde Valley. The town was formed in 1886 and designated a historic site in 1957. In its mining heyday it swelled to 15,000, though a local archivist questions whether Jerome itself grew to 15,000 . . .