Copperhill

Smog afflicting the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is Tennessee's most obvious form of air pollution, but for decades that dubious honor was held by an area called the Copper Basin.

This 56-square-mile, desertlike area around Copperhill resulted from the processing of copper ore. It all began in 1843, when a prospector found a rich vein of what at first looked like gold. Eight years later three mines opened. To separate the copper from the ore, huge fires built to "roast" out the copper burned 24 hours a day. This created devastation in three stages: Loggers seeking timber to fuel the roasters denuded 30,000 acres of surrounding hillsides; sulfur dioxide fumes from the roasting process killed off any remaining vegetation; and the 50-plus-inch annual rainfall did the rest, carrying the soil into streams and rivers and turning the land into a moonscape.

Old-timers claimed it wasn't all bad. The pollution that eliminated the vegetation also drove off flies, mosquitoes, ticks, rats, and snakes. Residents took stubborn pride in where they lived and in the way it shocked outsiders. Locals referred to their blighted area as the "Beloved Scar."

Technological improvements around 1900 led to the end of the open roasting. By 1907, the sulfur dioxide was captured and processed into sulfuric acid, a valuable by-product, and by the 1930s, the company made more money from sulfuric acid than it did from copper. But the damage was done, and it existed for most of the 20th century. Reforestation efforts have ended the blight, which now exists only in the memory of the oldest residents.

Mineshafts, ruins of mining structures, and piles of slag still mark the area. The Ducktown Basin Museum, on the site of the Burra Burra Mine, contains photographs, artifacts, and items related to copper mining.

The mines near here were the source of 90 percent of the copper used by the Confederacy to manufacture bronze cannons in Richmond, Virginia. Federal forces captured these mines in November of 1863.

Many houses were built on the sides of steep hills in this longtime mining town. Residents would park their cars at the bottom of the hills and climb long staircases, some of which survive. Just north of town is a huge pile of slag, the impurities removed in processing copper. Just one mine produced an estimated 15.6 million tons of ore.

The Lodge at Copperhill (12 Grande Ave., 423/496-9020), once the home of Copperhill's famous Dr. Hicks, bills itself as "the only European-style inn in Appalachia." This means that it charges by the person--$25 per head--not the room. Unlike the inns of old, it does not put guests in with strangers.

New York Restaurant (95 Ocoee St., 423/496-3855) has country cooking seven days a week, for all three meals.