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. Boosters from Middlesborough petitioned to host the 1892 World's Fair. Pianist Ben Harney is also claimed to have originated ragtime music in Middlesboro, where he played in local saloons in the early 1890s. 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. The Middlesboro Country Club was founded as part of Arthur's original development. The Alexander Arthur Museumīy 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. ![]() Simultaneously, he funded and began construction on the Powell's Valley Railroad, with the aim of connecting the Cumberland Gap region to Knoxville. 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. 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. Having settled in Knoxville, Tennessee, he arranged development projects in the area as part of the post- war New 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. He was later followed by Thomas Walker in 1750 and Daniel Boone in 1769. The first European known to have visited the area was Gabriel Arthur in 1674. ![]() The area was originally inhabited by American Indians such as the Shawnee. 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. 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. 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). ![]() It is located 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the Cumberland Gap and is the largest city in southeastern Kentucky. census, while its micropolitan area had a population of 69,060. The population was 10,334 at the 2010 U.S. Middlesboro ( locally / ˈ m ɪ d əl z b ʌr ə/) is a home rule-class city in Bell County, Kentucky, United States.
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