Briceville, Tennessee

Briceville, Tennessee
Unincorporated community
View from the Briceville Community Church Cemetery
Coordinates: 36°10′42″N 84°11′07″W / 36.17833°N 84.18528°W / 36.17833; -84.18528Coordinates: 36°10′42″N 84°11′07″W / 36.17833°N 84.18528°W / 36.17833; -84.18528
Country	United States
State	Tennessee
County	Anderson
Elevation	912 ft (278 m)
Time zone	Eastern (EST) (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-4)
ZIP code	37710
Area code(s)	865
GNIS feature ID	1278326

Briceville is an unincorporated community in Anderson County, Tennessee. It is included in the Knoxville, Tennessee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The community is named for railroad tycoon and one-term Democratic U.S. Senator Calvin S. Brice of Ohio, who was instrumental in bringing railroad service to the town.

The Briceville zip code, 37710, which also includes a large remote mountain area west of the community formerly served by the now-closed Devonia post office, had a population of 1,441 as of the 2000 U.S. Census.

Briceville's economy was historically based on coal mining. Briceville played an important role in three major late-19th and early-20th century incidents related to the region's coal mining activities: the Coal Creek War in 1891, the Fraterville Mine disaster of 1902, and the Cross Mountain Mine disaster of 1911.

The Knoxville Iron Company, cofounded by Welsh immigrants in 1868, began mining coal in the Coal Creek Valley in the late 1860s, initially hauling the coal from the mines via wagon, and later by railroad after the completion of a Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad line between Knoxville and Coal Creek (now Lake City) in 1869. In subsequent years, Knoxville Iron and other companies gradually worked their way up the Coal Creek Valley, opening mines in The Wye, Fraterville, and Slatestone Hollow. In 1888, at Senator Calvin Brice's behest, a railroad spur was built connecting Coal Creek with Slatestone Hollow. After this line's completion, the Slatestone Hollow community was renamed "Briceville."