Middlesboro () is a home rule-class city in Bell County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 10,334 at the 2010 U.S. census, while its micropolitan area had a population of 69,060.
It is located west of the Cumberland Gap and is the largest city in southeastern Kentucky. It is located entirely between Pine Mountain and the Cumberland Mountains in the Middlesboro Basin, an enormous meteorite crater (one of three known astroblemes in the state).
Name
Originally funded by English businessmen, the town opened its first post office on September 14, 1888, under the name Middlesborough, presumably in honor of the English town of - at the time - the same name. The city was formally incorporated under that spelling on March 14 two years later, but the post office switched to "Middlesboro" in 1894 and that spelling has since been adopted by the city itself, the city's school district, the Kentucky Land Office, and the U.S. Board on Geographic Names.
History
Early history
The area was originally inhabited by American Indians such as the Shawnee. The first European known to have visited the area was Gabriel Arthur in 1674. He was later followed by Thomas Walker in 1750 and Daniel Boone in 1769.
Pittsburgh of the South
John Turner of Virginia established the settlement of Yellow Creek nearby in 1810, but the town did not begin to develop until the Scottish-born and Canadian-raised engineer and entrepreneur Alexander Arthur took an interest in the Yellow Creek Valley. Having settled in Knoxville, Tennessee, he arranged development projects in the area as part of the post-war New South. Taking an interest in the iron deposits around the Cumberland Gap around 1886, Arthur was able to convince some of the wealthy scions of Gilded-Age Asheville, North Carolina, to talk to their families about funding a "Pittsburgh of the South", but sufficient financing was not forthcoming. He then traveled to England, where he was able to find interested backers for his "Magic City" of 250,000 residents enjoying running water, electricity, a large sporting commons, and electric trams in the middle of Appalachia. Simultaneously, he funded and began construction on the Powell's Valley Railroad, with the aim of connecting the Cumberland Gap region to Knoxville.
By 1888, the new town was platted and named "Middlesborough", presumably after the English town, either after a local contest selected it as the best entry or after the hometown of the brothers who owned the local English Hotel. The Middlesboro Country Club was founded as part of Arthur's original development. Its nine-hole course is one of the oldest in the United States and it claims to be the oldest continuously played course in the country. Pianist Ben Harney is also claimed to have originated ragtime music in Middlesboro, where he played in local saloons in the early 1890s. Just south of the Cumberland Gap in the area of the present-day Lincoln Memorial University, a $1-million Four Seasons Hotel was built in 1892 with 500 rooms, a 200-room spa, and a sanitarium.
Arthur's project failed by 1893. The Cumberland Gap had turned out to be too steep for locomotives and, in order to connect Middlesboro to the Tennessee line, an expensive tunnel needed to be constructed from 1888 to 1889, ultimately necessitating the dissolution of the Powell Valley Railroad and its recapitalization as the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap, & Louisville. Rebuilding from a devastating fire in 1890 used up more capital and time and the poor quality of local ore meant that revenue from Arthur's steel mills was insufficient to weather the Panic of 1893 on Wall Street. Arthur's development of the area finished, the post office was renamed the following year after the already-prevalent local spelling "Middlesboro". The Knoxville, Cumberland Pass, & Louisville was bought out by the L&N in 1896. The local newspaper, the Middlesboro Daily News, was established in 1911.
Despite being the largest city in the county, the development of Middlesboro came too late to avoid Pineville's being the seat of the local courthouse. The two cities have remained friendly rivals since Middlesboro's founding.
Little Las Vegas
Middlesboro installed the first electric street cars west of Washington, D.C., to help locals and tourists visiting the city which became known as "Little Las Vegas" in the 1930s. By this time, Middlesboro was full of slot machines, saloons, and brothels. During this period, shootouts in the streets were part of daily life. The town, under rule of the infamous Ball brothers, was featured in newspapers across the country as one of the deadliest, wildest cities in the United States.