Middlesboro crater is a meteorite impact basin in southeastern Kentucky, about 3 miles wide, formed less than 300 million years ago when an object about 100 meters across struck the region. Occupied largely by the city of Middlesboro, it lies within the Cumberland Gap landscape, where its terrain helped ease travel for packhorses and early wagon roads during westward settlement. Founded in 1886 for iron and coal, Middlesboro was established long before the basin’s impact origin was recognized. Geologists confirmed that origin in the 1960s through shatter cones and shocked quartz. The site is also notable as a rare industrial and geological landmark, with coal mined inside the crater.