Copperhill

History

Copperhill is located in a geological region known as the Copper Basin, which was the site of a major copper mining operation between the 1840s and 1987. According to the original border surveying plan, Copperhill (and Ducktown, Tennessee) would have been in North Carolina. In 1819, surveyors were instructed to follow the highest ridges to the Georgia state line. However, at Unicoi Gap surveyors immediately turned south for 15 miles, reportedly because they ran out of liquor and heard there was a moonshine still at the Georgia border. Starting around the time of the Civil War, the production method for removing the Sulphur from the copper ore mined in the area required building bonfires, throwing in the ore, and burning off the Sulphur. This necessitated cutting most of the trees in the valley for the bonfires. The acid rain caused by the burning of the Sulphur inhibited additional vegetation from growing, and the topsoil consequently washed off the hilly terrain due to lack of vegetation to hold it. Though acid plants were later built to convert the Sulphur into a useful product, the result of the earlier activities was that for years, up until the 1980s, the area was denuded of any greenery, and the red clay soil remaining gave it a Martian appearance. The area has now been greatly reforested, due to a multimillion-dollar effort by the successor companies to the original copper company. The copper and acid plants have been permanently closed and most of the plant infrastructure already removed and sold overseas. Much of the scrap metals from the site have been removed and sold to China. Glenn Springs Holdings has cleaned and purified all the surrounding creeks and waterways, and water quality is now back to near pristine condition according to published EPA and…

Geography

Copperhill is located at (34.992108, -84.374254), situated in extreme southeast Tennessee, bordering North Georgia. Its twin city is McCaysville, Georgia, with the two situated as a single town aligned along a northwestward-flowing river, known as the Toccoa River in Georgia, and the Ocoee River in Tennessee, rather than the east/west state line, which cuts diagonally across streets (where it is marked with a blue line) and through buildings. There is a main downtown area, which the town shares with McCaysville, and it retains a historic feel of when it was thriving. The main street through town is Ocoee Street (Tennessee State Route 68) which becomes Toccoa Street (Georgia State Route 60) to the east-southeast in McCaysville. A truss bridge over the river at the state line links them to Blue Ridge Drive (Georgia 5) to the south-southwest. In the early morning hours of February 16, 1990, a major flood struck the towns, although it is now hard to see any damage from this flooding. The upstream Blue Ridge Dam was raised several feet by the Tennessee Valley Authority, thus greatly minimizing any potential future possible occurrence of flooding. There have been no further incidents with the river flooding. As a result of the state line, homes and businesses on the Copperhill side of town have area code 423, while those on the McCaysville side have area code 706. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and (2.08%) is water.

Race & ethnicity

Most-observed species

• American Crow

  Corvus brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822 · Aves
  2,468
• Carolina Wren

  Thryothorus ludovicianus (Latham, 1790) · Aves
  1,870
• Tufted Titmouse

  Baeolophus bicolor (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  1,824
• Northern Cardinal

  Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,712
• Blue Jay

  Cyanocitta cristata (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,706
• Carolina Chickadee

  Poecile carolinensis (Audubon, 1834) · Aves
  1,681
• Eastern Bluebird

  Sialia sialis (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,374
• Red-bellied Woodpecker

  Melanerpes carolinus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  1,316

Largest nearby schools

• Copper Basin Elementary School
  Elementary · Copperhill · 349 students · 17.4:1 ratio
• Copper Basin High School
  High · Copperhill · 265 students · 10.2:1 ratio

Most recent

• M 2.57 — 2025-07-10
  2 km E of Greenback, Tennessee
• M 4.1 — 2025-05-10
  21 km SE of Greenback, Tennessee
• M 2.58 — 2024-03-10
  14 km W of Graysville, Tennessee
• M 2.58 — 2024-02-29
  9 km NNW of Graysville, Tennessee
• M 2.51 — 2023-11-04
  7 km WSW of Bryson City, North Carolina
• M 2.94 — 2022-01-21
  16 km NNE of Eton, Georgia