Ghost Town: Picher Ok

[MattB]

We drove out to Picher Ok this past Saturday.
Picher is a ghost town and former city in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, United States. Much of the land was originally owned by the Quapaw Tribe after Indian Removal. In the early 20th century, mining took place initially under federal leases of these lands but the Quapaw did not receive a fair share of royalties and were generally excluded from the thousands of mining jobs in the region. In 2000 they comprised a significant minority of the population in the city. This was a major national center of lead and zinc mining at the heart of the Tri-State Mining District.More than a century of unrestricted subsurface excavation dangerously undermined most of Picher's town buildings and left giant piles of toxic metal-contaminated mine tailings (known as chat) heaped throughout the area. The discovery of the cave-in risks, groundwater contamination, and health effects associated with the chat piles and subsurface shafts resulted in the site being included in 1980 in the Tar Creek Superfund Site by the US Environmental Protection Agency. The state collaborated on mitigation and remediation measures, but a 1996 study found that 34% of the children in Picher suffered from lead poisoning due to these environmental effects, which could result in lifelong neurological problems.[4] Eventually EPA and the state of Oklahoma agreed to a mandatory evacuation and buyout of the entire township. The similarly contaminated satellite towns of Treece, Kansas and Cardin, Oklahoma were included in the Tar Creek Superfund site.A 2006 Army Corps of Engineers study showed 86% of Picher's buildings (including the town school) were badly undermined and subject to collapse at any time.[5] The destruction of 150 homes by an F4 tornado in May 2008 accelerated the exodus. On September 1, 2009, the state of Oklahoma officially dis-incorporated the city of Picher.The town ceased official operations on September 1, 2009 and the population plummeted from 1,640 at the 2000 census to 20 at the 2010 census. As of January 2011, only six homes and one business remain, their owners having refused to leave at any price. The rest of the town's buildings, except designated historical structures, were scheduled to be demolished by the end of the year.

Picher is among a small number of locations in the world (such as Gilman, Colorado, Centralia, Pennsylvania, and Wittenoom, Western Australia) to be evacuated and declared uninhabitable due to environmental and health damage caused by the mines the town once serviced.

(Video not mine) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sat067Qbpcg

[Tritone]

If I remember correctly the last business was the pharmacy; the pharmacist passed on recently. MattB, you have stepped back in time, and I thank you for your efforts. There are many towns and former towns out there waiting for you. Have fun! Add Times Beach, Missouri to your list of towns evacuated due to environmental issues, in this case, dioxin.

[Urbanized]

If you want to know the story behind the evacuation of Picher/Cardin I highly recommend watching the excellent documentary The Creek Runs Red by Oklahomans Bradley Beesley, Julianna Brannum and James Payne. They filmed it in the mid-aughts, just before the buyouts were finalized, and when the town was still a town. They do a great job of telling the story, and making the viewer understand how the residents were torn between wanting resolution and yet on some level not wanting to abandon the only place they had ever known as home.

[John]

There is an episode of "Forgotten Planet: Abandoned America" by DiscoveryChannel that featured Picher. Might still be up on Netflix.

A really strange look at the place -- and one rogue biker who patrols the town trying to prevent meth production.

[Urbanized]

There are quite a few "exploration" videos featuring Picher on YouTube now. Here is a pretty good one. Odd that someone seems to be still mowing the grass in some places:

[Urbanized]

A CNN story...check out the size of downtown Picher years ago at the :54 second mark:

[Willb]

I live down in the road from Picher, in Miami.

When we first moved up this way 15 years ago, There were still a lot of folks there. In fact one year, I used my truck to pull the parade float for the Picher Boys and Girls club at the Christmas parade ('05 possibly '06).
Sometime after that, the Federal Government started to buy out the town, and there was talk of actually moving the town a couple of miles south to the intersection of US 69 and old 66. A few people started to move out, but the mass exodus didn't really get going until the tornado hit in '08


Its really sad that it no longer exists

[RadicalModerate]

We once tried to take an extended family trip to Pitcher. The kinfolk--who lived in Miami (Me Ama) were driving. We passed the noted Mushroom Plant and a couple of raggedy Indian Casinos. And ventured North toward Pitcher. The driver--local--paid attention to the "Warning: SinkHole Signs" . . . And that was all before The Tornado.

[RadicalModerate]

One the most interesting parts of the story of Picher . . . is that one of the best baseball players in history grew up in Commerce . . . just down the road from Pitcher and was an outfielder.

[Urbanized]

^^^^^^^
Mickey's dad actually worked in the zinc mines in Picher. One of the best MM stories is from his minor league days in Kansas City, when he was homesick and having a hard time adjusting to pro baseball. He called his dad to tell him that he was thinking of quitting. His dad drove to KC, told Mickey to load up his stuff and that he would drive him back home where a job was waiting for him starting the next week, working in the Picher mines. Mickey got over his homesickness real quick, and the rest is history.

[cindycat]

We once tried to take an extended family trip to Pitcher. The kinfolk--who lived in Miami (Me Ama) were driving. We passed the noted Mushroom Plant and a couple of raggedy Indian Casinos. And ventured North toward Pitcher. The driver--local--paid attention to the "Warning: SinkHole Signs" . . . And that was all before The Tornado.

I grew up in Miami and must correct your pronunciation. It's My Am Uh. We call all the ones in other states My Am EE. I never did know the story behind our pronunciation. A few months ago I saw some travel show where the host was standing in front of the Coleman Theatre (yes, that's the way it's spelled) and said Me Ama. Never heard that before.

And on the subject of Mickey Mantle...he stayed in my grandmother's garage apartment in Miami during the winter before he went up the Yankees for the first time. He left a calling card...a big hole in the closet wall...we always wondered how that happened....

[MattB]

Ha ha... just because the locals butcher the language doesn't make it right. And Okies DO butcher the language. Think about all of the things they mispronounce, or even words they use improperly, modify, and even make up... and the way they accentuate the first syllable of multi-syllable words... "IN-surance. DISplay. HOtel. GUItar. They say "set," when they mean "sit." (Inanimate objects SET, people SIT) Another one that drive's me nuts is when they use the work "whelp" when they mean raised bruises. The word means un-weaned puppies.

[Urbanized]

Apostrophe abuse is what drives ME nuts.

[MattB]

Apostrophe abuse is what drives ME nuts.

Tell me about it. Part of my job is approving all of the paperwork of my subordinates. I work with a slew of guys and gals who think any word ending with an "S" needs an apostrophe. Then I've got a guy who constantly writes: "I then made contact with the reporting party's."