 Jerome was built in 1904 as a company town for what became the Hillman Coal & Coke Company of Pittsburgh, and named for Jerome Coulson, the son of a coal company official.The town filled mostly with immigrants from Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Russia and Italy—particularly Italians from the Alpine province of Trentino and the town of San Lorenzo in Banale (part of the Dolomiti di Brenta area)—in addition to local Scots-Irish, Welsh and German stock.Jerome was the largest single coal mine in the Cambria-Somerset district.