Sam Abraham House, Park Avenue at Highline Road, Clifton

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Associated with early and important Clifton resident Sam Abraham, and with the development of Clifton. Description: The Sam Abraham House is buffered from Park Avenue by a lushly-landscaped front yard. Several additions to the rear of the original building consume most of the back yard. The house is a one- story wood frame building with a side gable roof. The original house is a National Folk style house of the Hall-and-Parlor type. Much of the west front of the house is obscured with vegetation. The original windows are wood double-hung. Exterior materials include wood clapboard siding and asphalt shingle roofing. The additions, most of an early date, have more than doubled the size of the house and were added incrementally in piecemeal fashion.

A separate wood frame garage building sits adjacent to the original house. History: The original core building of this frame construction conglomeration of additions dates to ca. It has been expanded and modified several times during the historic period. It is associated with Samuel Abraham, an early Clifton hotel owner and banker, who constructed it on land leased from the Arizona Copper Company.1 Sam Abraham was a member of the close-knit Jewish community in Arizona. Clifton had a strong and vibrant Jewish population dating to the early when the Lesinsky brothers began copper mining operations. Like the Lesinsky family, Abraham came to Clifton from Silver City, New Mexico, in Abraham was born in San Francisco on December and moved to SilverCity at age 14.

He married Laura Dorsey in In Sam Abraham took over ownership of the Clifton Hotel from M. Abraham. Sam Abraham continued to operate the Clifton Hotel until his death in The Clifton Hotel and the Abraham house shared a certain degree of architectural similarity, as both consisted of several buildings and additions as the result of expansions during boom times. In his later years, Abraham was active in the First National Bank of Clifton. Abraham directed the construction of a new bank building in and the acquisition of the People's Bank and Trust in The First National Bank of Clifton failed in in the uncertain economic climate following World War One. It never reopened. Sam Abraham fell ill in late November of and traveled to a hospital in El Paso for treatment.

He died on December 10 and is buried in Silver City, New Mexico.2 SAM ABRAHAM HOUSE HABSNo. AZ-181 (Page 2) Sources (endnotes): 1. Sanborn Fire Insurance maps Arizona Copper Company base map; Arizona Copper Company lease records at University of Arizona Special Collections. 2. Biographical information on Sam Abraham taken from the Copper Era December 19, (I, 1: 1); see also December 4) and December On the acquisition of the Clifton Hotel, see the Copper Era April (I, 3; 2). The Copper Era describes Abraham's banking activities on April (I, 5: 3); June 6); February April May and June 1,