Up From the Mines in Tennessee - New York Times

By CHRIS DIXON
Published: December 14, 2007
LOOKING down from the hilltop cemetery, Barbara Beaver remembered that when she was a girl growing up in the Tennessee mountains, Copperhill was a blighted but starkly beautiful moonscape. “It would kind of make you think of Moab, Utah,” she said.

The land around the mining town, in the southeast corner of Tennessee overlooking Georgia and North Carolina, was literally stripped bare for 40 square miles. “In Georgia and Tennessee, all you could see was the red hills,” she said. “But then you could look way over to North Carolina and see the greenery. They were far enough away that they didn’t get what we called ‘the gas.’ ”

“The gas” was an acidic vapor generated by hellish ore smelters and sulfuric acid plants fed by the mines that gave the Copper Basin its name. It wafted unchecked for better than a generation, poisoning air and water and obliterating vegetation.

“My mother and daddy would grow tomato plants, and that gas would come through,” Ms. Beaver, 70, continued. “The next day they’d just be wilted and hailed over like someone went through them with a fire.”

But today, that’s all changed. “It doesn’t look like that anymore,” she said. “It’s like daylight and dark. Yesterday it was all red hills, and then you wake up the next day and it’s all turned to green.”

Nearly 45 years ago, Ms. Beaver fled 100 miles south to Atlanta in search of opportunity. But over the last several years she has joined a trickle of other retirees, second-home buyers and entrepreneurs who are renovating inexpensive old homes, restaurants and shops. Nearby, a remarkable cleanup of the mine site is nearing completion, ushering in what is hoped will be a far greener future for what was once one of the most devastated places in North America.

The basin’s most optimistic newcomers include artists, outdoor enthusiasts and a small cadre of Atlanta real estate developers who have specialized in revitalizing neighborhoods around the Cabbagetown district of Atlanta.

John Blankenship, 41, owner of Copper City Brokers, splits time between Atlanta and a 100-year-old Craftsman cottage he restored in downtown Copperhill. In March 2006, the town’s mayor, Herbert Hood, asked Mr. Blankenship to fill a council seat (he resigned late last month, citing time pressures). Mr. Blankenship has since pushed for Copperhill and adjacent McCaysville to spruce up their downtowns to attract more investment.

“This area has the perfect retail street,” Mr. Blankenship said. “And this is one of the few mountain downtowns with such a substantial historical district. Throw into that mix the river, the history of the mine site and the fact that remediators will be turning it into a recreational area with trails and interpretive tours, Copperhill’s going to be a serious draw.”

In January, Mr. Blankenship and a partner, Greg Tinsley, bought the historic downtown building that holds the New York Hotel and Restaurant, which also contains a small bar, a corner space he hopes to lease as a bakery or other retail space, and a 17-room apartment building. They plan to restore the restaurant and create a boutique hotel.
Councilman Mike Williams, who runs a local cabin rental business, said he sees opportunity in ventures like Mr. Blankenship’s because Copperhill is one of the few places nearby where it is possible to have a drink with dinner. Much of this corner of Appalachia is dry.
“I was just in Savannah walking past the restaurants and bars, and strolling vacationers,” he said. “That’s what can help us become a tourist town and will generate jobs. There’s just not much here for our younger generation.”
Scott Nichols and Kay Jones, both local real estate agents, say the perception of the Copper Basin as blighted has kept prices down while nearby towns like Blue Ridge, Ga., have thrived. Mountain cottages near that town run into the hundred thousands, while properties on Lake Blue Ridge, where big Nashville country artists have homes, run into the millions.
But in Copperhill, a historic bungalow within walking distance of downtown can be found for $40,000 to $50,000. Off Main Street, Mr. Blankenship is asking $115,000 for a beautifully restored four-bedroom, one-bath 1923 Craftsman house. Just outside Ducktown, Ms. Jones is offering acre-plus lots in a planned neighborhood called Highland Woods for $30,000 to $60,000. Just up Highway 64 lies Campbell Cove, an 88-acre lake where a waterfront lot can be had for $199,000, and homes in the $300,000s to $600,000s.
“As the scars and memories of the copper mining and chemical company fade further into memory, people will once again see this area for the natural beauty it has,” Mr. Nichols said. “The mountains are there, the rivers are there, the outdoor adventure is there, and 4.5 million stressed-out Atlantans are just two hours south.”
Copperhill’s new life could hardly have been imagined 50 years ago.
From the mid-1800s until a generation after World War II, ore from the Copper Basin’s mines brought both devastation and prosperity. Timber-fueled smelting operations resulted in the logging of every tree for miles, while smog ruined remaining plant life. Rains depleted topsoil and poured acid and metals into streams. The smelters were somewhat cleaner by the time Ms. Beaver was a teenager, but the “beloved scar,” as many called the mine site, had denuded at least 40 square miles.
The last shaft closed in 1987, leaving embittered miners and a rusting, toxic badlands. Then in 1990, a devastating flood put much of Copperhill and McCaysville underwater.
But there were signs of renewal.
After the flood, Joe Jacobi, an Olympic gold medal kayaker, led a successful lobbying effort to bring the Atlanta Olympic white-water event to the rapids of the Ocoee River in 1996. His wife, Lisa, today a local Internet entrepreneur, quit a job at CNN as a news producer and the pair opened a downtown bed-and-breakfast.
“Even among people who had been here for a long time, the effect of the Olympics was profound,” Mr. Jacobi said. “People were exposed to different cultures, accents and customs.”
Some reforestation had commenced decades earlier, but serious mine cleanup began in 2001, when Glenn Springs Holdings, an Occidental Petroleum subsidiary, entered into a formal agreement with Tennessee and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. To date over 40,000 dump truck loads of contaminated soil have been hauled off.
On a drive through the mine site, the construction manager, Ron Wiggins, pointed to dense stands of forest that had either been seeded or had established themselves in the last couple of decades. At Potato Creek, polluted water flowed into a deep lake. The acidic poisons sink to the bottom, where they are piped into a tower, precipitated out with air and lime and entombed deep in former mine shafts. The resulting water, which sometimes flows into the Ocoee at 91,000 gallons a minute, is clean enough to drink. “We didn’t set out to do it, but we created the biggest acid rock drainage water treatment plant in the world,” Mr. Wiggins said.
Across Highway 68, a rail bed will become a bicycle trail. Near the New London mine, a reed-filled wetland filters sulfurous water. A mile distant, a verdant valley is now home to mice, turkeys, bobcats, snakes and bears. Down a short dirt road, another lake now teems with fish.
Mr. Wiggins won’t guess when the site might become a public park, but tours have left locals astonished. “We’ve had to overcome the idea that this place is still a polluted wasteland,” he said. “A lot of old timers don’t believe it can ever be cleaned up.”
Hundreds of tourists from the increasingly popular Blue Ridge Railroad have discovered Copperhill and McCaysville. They peruse a small but growing collection of antiques and craft shops, or wander into the Nifty 50’s, a riverside cafe, the Georgia Boy’s Barbecue or El Rio, a busy Mexican restaurant. In the summer, visitors stream to the Ducktown Basin Museum, which holds not only a fascinating exhibition on the old mines, but also a fairly astonishing hilltop view of what was once a vast circle of devastation. “Pickin’ in the Park,” a weekly gathering outside McCaysville, draws hundreds of bluegrass fans and musicians.
It’s against this backdrop that Mr. Blankenship and other entrepreneurs saw opportunity. Kevin Nickell, 37, said he was compelled to open a photography gallery while driving through Copperhill on a rainy night. “I really hope to see a functional tourist town, a place where people will love to come to go out at night over a glass of wine or beer,” he said.
Gil Carter, a 41-year-old hiker from Ellijay, is in the midst of opening his second outdoor outfitting store. “Here, people can hike one day, raft the next and bike the day after that. There’s a natural backdrop few places can match,” he said.
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