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Bells Mines is a ghost town which was located between Sturgis and Marion, Kentucky, near the Ohio River, in Crittenden County, Kentucky, USA. Bells Mines is an unincorporated area of Crittenden County.〔Kentucky Home Town Locator http://kentucky.hometownlocator.com/maps/bigmap,n,bells%20mine%20(historical),fid,2743661.cfm〕 == History == Bells Mines was first settled in the early 1800s by farmers and settlers from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, eastern parts of Kentucky, and miners from England and Germany.〔Brenda Joyce Jerome, CG, ''Western Kentucky Genealogy Blog'' October 29, 2010〕 Its name is derived from the vicinity in which a number of coal mines were operated by the Bells Mine(s) Coal Company owned by John Bell (1796-1869), a prominent and affluent antebellum politician and businessman who was once Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and an 1860 Candidate for President of the United States. During the American Civil War, on July 13, 1864, Bells Mines was the site of a skirmish between 46 men of Company C of the 52nd Regiment Kentucky Volunteer Mounted Infantry and a band of 300 guerrillas sympathetic to the Confederate States of America. According to the Company's reports, one soldier was killed, 11 men were captured (6 of which subsequently escaped according to the ''Evansville Daily Journal'',) and 22 horses were killed.〔Historical sign developed by the Forrest C. Pogue Public History Institute of Murray State University funded by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WM9KRY_Bells_Mine〕 A critical part of life in Bells Mines were its churches. The Cumberland Presbyterian Church founded in 1830s, served the community and its descendants for over 150 years. After the town was abandoned, and with diminishing membership, services ceased in June 1998. Due to vandalism, theft and lack of use, its last members chose to raze the 111-year-old church in December 2002.〔Brenda Travis Underdown, ''Our Forgotten Passages'' blog, July 20, 2009 http://ourforgottenpassages.blogspot.com/2009/07/bells-mines-history.html〕 The graveyard adjacent to the site of the former church includes the ancestors and multiple generations of the community, including the Adamsons, Dempseys, Lambs, Jones, Newcombs, Sarlls, Sheeleys Travis and Tudors, among others.〔Find A Grave ''Bells Mines Cemetery'' http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&CRid=2306632〕 In the 1950s Alcoa purchased nearly 12,000 acres of land, one of the largest privately owned parcels in Kentucky, in Crittenden County, Kentucky and Union County, Kentucky, including much of the Bells Mines community, presumably to build a smelter in the area. This action served as the final catalyst for the dissolution of the community. Many families sold their homes at deep discounts with the prospects of the new smelting operation. Alcoa subsequently decided to place the smelting complex on the other side of the Ohio River in Newburgh, Indiana, and it was reported that Alcoa senior executives used the land in and around the former Bells Mines community for hunting retreats.〔The Crittenden Press, Marion, KY, article dated March 8, 1957.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bells Mines, Kentucky」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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