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.
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.