On Thursday, October 2, the Ducktown Basin Museum will commemorate its 30th anniversary with a special open house in honor of the occasion. The board of directors cordially invites everyone in the Basin and surrounding communities to attend the celebration. Refreshments will be served at the Hoist House from 4 to 6 p.m. The main museum building will also remain open during the event, and admission will be free.

The museum was founded in 1978, in a small storefront location on Main Street in Ducktown, by a group of local residents dedicated to the preservation of the Basin’s mining and industrial heritage. In 1982 it was moved to the 17-acre Burra Burra mine site formerly owned and operated by Tennessee Copper Company and its successor, Cities Service Company, which formally donated the site to the museum.

Ten historic mine buildings remain on the museum grounds, and a number of larger artifacts are on outdoor display. The museum now interprets the mine site and operations, as well as other aspects of the Basin’s human and geological history, to thousands of local, national and international visitors every year. In 1983, further emphasizing the historical importance of the largely intact site, the Burra Burra complex was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.