Editing Ducktown, Tennessee (section)

==History==
Ducktown is located in a geological region known as the [[Copper Basin (Tennessee)|Copper Basin]], and was the center of a major [[copper]]-mining district from 1847 until 1987.  The district also produced iron, sulfur and zinc as byproducts.<ref>Maurice Magee (1968) ''Geology and ore deposits of the Ducktown district, Tennessee'', in Ore Deposits of the United States 1933-1967, New York: American Institute of Mining Engineers, p.207-241.</ref>  Ducktown was the birthplace of Rockabilly Hall of Famer, [[Stan Beaver]].{{citation needed|date=September 2011}}

Literary historian Ben Harris McClary suggests that a Ducktown-area farmer named William "Sut" Miller (d. 1858) was the inspiration for the [[George Washington Harris]] character, Sut Lovingood.<ref>Henning Cohen, "Mark Twain's Sut Lovingood," ''Sut Lovingood Papers'' (Knoxville, Tenn.: University of Tennessee Press, 1962), pp. 19-24.</ref>  Ducktown and several Ducktown-area features, such as [[Big Frog Mountain]] and the [[Ocoee River]] ("Oconee"), are mentioned in the Sut Lovingood tales.{{citation needed|date=September 2011}}

===Pre-mining period===

The [[Cherokee]] inhabited the Copper Basin as early as the late 18th century, well before the arrival of the first Euro-American settlers.  Their territory extended into northern Georgia. The Cherokee village of ''Gawonvyi'' (also known as Kawana)&mdash; which means “duck place” in English<ref name="Outdoors">{{cite web |last1=Outdoors |first1=Cascade |title=History Of Ocoee River & The Area |url=https://cascadeoutdoors.com/2019/08/15/history-of-ocoee-river-and-the-area/ |website=cascadeoutdoors.com |access-date=October 14, 2020}}</ref>&mdash; is believed to have been located at the confluence of the [[Ocoee River]] and Tumbling Creek.  The village's name was recorded on Cherokee annuity distribution rolls as "Ducktown" in 1799.  According to tradition, Ducktown was named after a Cherokee leader named Chief Duck.<ref name=barclay>R.E. Barclay, ''Ducktown Back in Raht's Time'' (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1946), 4-5.</ref>

In 1836, the Cherokee relinquished control of the Copper Basin to the U.S. government as part of lands they ceded in Tennessee and Georgia in the [[Treaty of New Echota]].  Although the U.S. removed many of the basin's Cherokee inhabitants in the march to Indian Territory, some avoided the roundup by hiding out in the surrounding mountains.  They would later help build the Old Copper Road (now part of US [[U.S. Route 64]]). In the 1840s and 1850s, Ducktown was called ''Hiwassee'' or ''Hiawassee,'' after the Cherokee name for a major river in the area. This name was subsequently adopted for the city's first major mining operation.<ref>Barclay, pp. 8-9.</ref>

===Early mining years===
[[File:Ducktown train.jpg|thumb|A train bringing copper ore out of the Ducktown mines, 1939. Smelter fumes 
have destroyed all vegetation and eroded the land.  Photo by [[Marion Post Wolcott]].]]

[[Native copper]] was discovered in 1843 by a prospector, presumably panning for gold.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ducktownbasinmuseum.com/history.html |title=Ducktown Basin Museum - Preserving the mining history of the Ducktown Basin |access-date=June 9, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150515192858/http://www.ducktownbasinmuseum.com/history.html |archive-date=May 15, 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref>  The first shipment of copper ore was taken out on muleback in 1847.  More than 30 mining companies were incorporated between 1852 and 1855 to mine copper at Ducktown.  Development was accelerated by a road built in 1853 connecting the area with [[Cleveland, Tennessee]].  The first [[smelter]] was built in the Ducktown district in 1854.

Mining temporarily ceased when Union troops destroyed the copper [[Refining (metallurgy)|refinery]] and mill at [[Cleveland, Tennessee]] in 1863.  It resumed in 1866, and continued until 1878, when the mines had exhausted the shallow high-grade copper ores.

===Later years===
By 1906, the Tennessee Copper Company had begun constructing an acid reclamation plant near [[Copperhill, Tennessee]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.telliquah.com/History2.htm|title=Copper Basin Mining|last=Jack|website=www.telliquah.com|access-date=March 29, 2017}}</ref> to recover most of the [[sulfur]] in the form of [[sulfuric acid]] rather than releasing it to the atmosphere.  [[Froth flotation]] was added in the 1920s.