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Belltown, Polk County, Tennessee

East Tennessee geography stubsUnincorporated communities in Polk County, TennesseeUnincorporated communities in TennesseeUse mdy dates from July 2023

Belltown is an unincorporated community in Polk County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. A large share of Belltown's original inhabitants had the surname Bell, hence the name.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Belltown, Polk County, Tennessee (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors).

Belltown, Polk County, Tennessee
Belltown Road,

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Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 35.004722222222 ° E -84.356388888889 °
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Address

Belltown Road 570
37317
Tennessee, United States
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Copper Basin (Tennessee)
Copper Basin (Tennessee)

The Copper Basin, also known as the Ducktown Basin, is a geological region located primarily in Polk County, Tennessee, that contains deposits of copper ore and covers approximately 60,000 acres (24,000 hectares). Located in the southeastern corner of Tennessee, small portions of the basin extend into Fannin County, Georgia, and Cherokee County, North Carolina. The basin is surrounded by the Cherokee National Forest, and the cities of Ducktown and Copperhill, Tennessee, and McCaysville, Georgia are located in the basin. Copper was first discovered in the basin in 1843, and by the 1850s large mining operations, spearheaded by German-born businessman Julius Eckhardt Raht, were taking place. The mines were seized by the Confederacy during the American Civil War and were the source of about 90% of the copper used by the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, smelting operations, which were used to separate sulfur from the copper ore, resulted in acid rain in the area. Combined with the logging of nearby forests to fuel the smelters, this resulted in a massive environmental disaster that left the surrounding landscape barren for more than a century. Several mines, the largest of which was the Burra Burra Mine, operated in the basin. By the 1950s, mining operations in the Copper Basin began to decline, with the final mine closing in 1987. Today, the Ducktown Basin Museum chronicles the geological record and history of the mining operations in the basin.