Editing Ducktown, Tennessee (section)

===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.