Copperopolis is an unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Calaveras County, California, United States.

[2] Unlike most of the mining towns in the Calaveras County, Copperopolis' claim to fame is not gold, but copper.

It was founded in 1860 by William K. Reed, Dr. Allen Blatchly, and Thomas McCarty, at the site of the second major discovery of copper ore in the region (the first was nearby Telegraph City).

In 1862, Reed sold out his interest in the mines and built a toll road from Copperopolis through Telegraph City.

The copper was sent to Stockton and then to San Francisco, where it was loaded onto ships and taken around Cape Horn before finally arriving in smelters on the East Coast.

[24] Federally, Copperopolis is in California's 5th congressional district, represented by Republican Tom McClintock.

[25] Copperopolis is near Tuttletown, which has a shack on Jack Ass Hill, where Mark Twain is supposed to have written one of his most famous works, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County".

Author K. Martin Gardner expounds on this literary history, and Twain's friendship with renowned scientist of the time, Nikola Tesla, in his novel Copperopolis.