By Wesley Treat of Weird Arizona (to be released fall 2006)
As with any other tourist trap on a busy day, the town of Jerome typically sees a row of tourists all lined up, anxious for the toilet. Except here, they all try to hit it at once and from yards away.
They're aiming for a vintage outhouse, which sits at basement level on the site of the old Bartlett Hotel. They toss coinage, mostly pennies, trying their best to hit a hole in one.
The Bartlett is now just a shell, most of its materials having been sold for scrap, after it and several other buildings became unstable in the 1930s and started sliding downhill. But that's the reason for the coin commode. The Jerome Historical Society collects all the pitched pennies for restoration efforts former copper-mining town digging for copper the modern way.
Some tourists toss not just pennies, but nickels and dimes. Most go for accuracy, flinging one at a time, but some play the odds and hurl entire handfuls. A few high rollers even chuck in dollar bills, either folded into paper airplanes or, sometimes, tied to rocks. By the end of each month, Jerome collects about $1,000, all money down the toilet.
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THE WISHING OUTHOUSE, JEROME