Copper was first discovered in the basin in 1843, and by the 1850s large mining operations, spearheaded by German-born businessman Julius Eckhardt Raht, were taking place.

The mines were seized by the Confederacy during the American Civil War and were the source of about 90% of the copper used by the Confederate Army.

After the Civil War, smelting operations, which were used to separate sulfur from the copper ore, resulted in acid rain in the area.

Combined with the logging of nearby forests to fuel the smelters, this resulted in a massive environmental disaster that left the surrounding landscape barren for more than a century.

The Tennessee Valley Authority's Ocoee Dam Number 3 created a reservoir that extends into the Copper Basin.

[15] This discovery sparked interest among regional entrepreneurs and opportunists, although the lack of major roads in and out of the basin complicated early mining operations.

[13] This consisted of 90 casks shipped by mule to Dalton, Georgia, about 70 miles (110 km) away, where the nearest railroad was located at that time.

[16] The first purchase of land in the Copper Basin for mining activities occurred in 1849 when a British agent bought 400 acres (160 ha) for a price of $30,000 (equivalent to $869,218 in 2025[17]).

[23][22] In January 1862 the Confederacy seized control of the mines, halting private operations, and began using the copper from the basin solely to produce weapons for the war effort.

[24] By 1863 mining operations had largely ceased in the basin, partially because many of the miners had joined the Confederate army.

[22][25] Between November 25 and 27, 1863, during the Chattanooga campaign, Union cavalrymen led by Colonel Eli Long raided Cleveland, destroying portions of the railroad and the copper rolling mill.

[26] This raid, as well as the Confederate defeat at the Battle of Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga, resulted in restoration of the mines to Union control.

[21] In the summer of 1889, the Marietta & North Georgia Railroad and the Knoxville Southern Railroad built a rail line connecting the Copper Basin to Knoxville to the north and Marietta, Georgia to the south, and mining operations resumed the following year.

[8] The London-based Ducktown Sulphur, Copper and Iron Company (DCS&I) reopened the Mary Mine in 1890, and the following year the open-roast heap smelting process was first used in the basin.

[33] The company's open roast smelting method released large amounts of sulfur dioxide into the air, killing off all vegetation in the Copper Basin region.

After the intervention of law enforcement, the strike was settled three months later when the DCS&I reaffirmed their policy of not hiring union members.

Houser, the head of the TCC at this time, further expanded the products produced in the basin and allowed the employees to unionize.

[37] The unions fought for control of the entire company, and two subsequent elections were held by the National Labor Relations Board.

[37] The strike mostly ended in late August when the TCC reopened the mines and the NLRB rejected a petition by the AFL for a third vote.

[40] On April 1, 14, and 24, 1940, a total of six explosions, perpetrated by striking miners, damaged three separate transmission lines operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that supplied power to the basin, briefly cutting power to the basin and forcing the closure of the mines.

[43][44][45] The explosion was the result of a detonation of dust and sulfur fumes in the mine that had been dispersed by a routine blasting operation.

[47] The survivors who were trapped were able to open a compressed air line that provided an adequate supply of oxygen until they were rescued.

[23] Faced with decreasing demand and increasing foreign competition, however, the mining industry began to decline in the Copper Basin in the 1950s.

During the Vietnam War, sulfuric acid produced in the Copper Basin was supplied to the Volunteer Army Ammunition Plant in Chattanooga.

[23] In the early years of the mining operations, the forests in the Copper Basin were logged to fuel the smelters.

As early as 1861 trees were becoming scarce, and in 1876 the companies began importing logs from Fannin County, Georgia.

[8] The reddish-brown landscape that resulted, which consisted mostly of iron and copper ore, was often compared to a desert and the surface of Mars and was distinctly visible from space.

[8] That same year, in Madison v. Ducktown Sulphur, Copper & Iron Company, the Tennessee Supreme Court reversed an injunction that would have forced a cessation of the mining operations until the pollution was mitigated.