Ducktown

History

Ducktown is located in a geological region known as the 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. Ducktown was the birthplace of Rockabilly Hall of Famer, Stan Beaver. 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. Ducktown and several Ducktown-area features, such as Big Frog Mountain and the Ocoee River ("Oconee"), are mentioned in the Sut Lovingood tales. 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)— which means “duck place” in English— 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. According to the original border surveying plan, Ducktown (and Copperhill, Tennessee) would have been in North Carolina. In 1819, surveyors were instructed to follow the highest ridges to the Georgia 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 line. 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…

Geography

Ducktown is situated at the center of the Copper Basin (sometimes called the Ducktown Basin), a broad valley located in the southern Appalachian Mountains near the intersection of Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina. The Ducktown area is part of the Ocoee River watershed (which hosted the Canoe slalom events for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta), which passes through the Copper Basin a few miles southwest of Ducktown before entering its gorge. Ducktown is centered just north of the junction of Tennessee State Route 68, which connects the city to Madisonville to the north and Copperhill to the south, and U.S. Route 64, which connects the city to Cleveland (via the Ocoee River Gorge) to the west and Murphy, North Carolina to the east. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , all land. The Ducktown Basin Museum, located on the site of the Burra Burra Mine in Ducktown, chronicles the geology and history of the mining activities in the basin.

Race & ethnicity