page_title: Copper mining in the United States
section_title: Tennessee
hierarchical_section_title: Copper mining in the United States / By state / Tennessee
caption_attribution_description: English: Machine parts and tools scattered about the grounds of the Burra Burra Mine site in Ducktown, Tennessee, in southeastern United States.
context_page_description: Copper mining in the United States has been a major industry since the rise of the northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. In 2017 the United States produced 1.27 million metric tonnes of copper, worth $8 billion, making it the world's fourth largest copper producer, after Chile, China, and Peru. Copper was produced from 23 mines in the US. Top copper producing states in 2014 were Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, and Montana. Minor production also came from Idaho, and Missouri. As of 2014, the US had 45 million tonnes of known remaining reserves of copper, the fifth largest known copper reserves in the world, after Chile, Australia, Peru, and Mexico.
  Copper in the US is used mainly in construction and electric equipment. In 2014, the nation produced 69% of the copper it used, relying on imports from Chile, Canada, Peru, and Mexico for the remaining 31%.
  Copper mining activity increased in the early 2000s because of increased price: the price increased from an average of $0.76 per pound for the year 2002, to $3.02 per pound for 2007.
  A number of byproducts are recovered from American copper mining.
context_section_description: The Copper Basin, located in the extreme southeastern corner of Tennessee in Polk County, was the center of a major copper-mining district from 1847 into the 1970s.  The district also produced iron, sulfur and zinc as byproducts.  The copper was discovered in 1843 by a prospector, presumably panning for gold, who found nuggets of native copper.  The first shipment of copper ore was taken out on muleback in made in 1847.  More than 30 mining companies were incorporated between 1852 and 1855 to mine copper at Ducktown.  Development was speeded by a road built in 1853 connecting the area with Cleveland, Tennessee.  The first smelter was built in the Ducktown district in 1854.  Mining ceased when Union troops destroyed the copper refinery and mill at Cleveland, Tennessee in 1863.  Mining resumed in 1866, and continued until 1878, when the mines had exhausted the shallow high-grade copper ores.
  In 1889, the Ducktown Sulphur, Copper, Gold and Iron Company bought the properties, and began producing copper and iron from the deeper high-sulfide ores, which previous companies were unable to work successfully.  The ores were treated by open roasting in which the ore was piled in large stacks with alternating layers of wood, and burned.  The method released large quantities of sulfur dioxide, which killed much of the vegetation in the immediate area. Open roasting was replaced by pyrite smelting in 1904, and the smelters began recovering the most of the sulfur in the form of sulfuric acid rather than releasing it to the atmosphere. Froth flotation was added in the 1920s.
  The Burra Burra Mine in Ducktown is now home to a museum dedicated to the interpretation of the region's copper mining history.
caption: Mining machine parts and tools scattered about the Burra Burra Mine site, Ducktown, Tennessee
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