Karabash, Russia

History

It was founded in 1822 as a settlement of gold-miners. While gold mining was the town's original main industry, large deposits of copper were subsequently discovered near Karabash. In 1837, the town's first copper smelting plant was built, which existed for just five years, and proved to be less economically lucrative than the town's gold industry. A second copper smeltery was built in 1907, but lasted for only three years. In 1910, a new copper smelting plant was built in Karabash, which remains the town's primary plant. The plant achieved much more success than its predecessors, spurring substantial growth in the town during the early 1910s, and produced one-third of all smelted copper in Russia by 1915.

During the Russian Civil War, copper production in Karabash stopped, and the local copper mines became flooded.

From the History section of Karabash, Chelyabinsk Oblast on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.