Picher, Oklahoma (Ghost town)

USA / Oklahoma / Picher /
 city, ghost town
Picher at one time was a mining town with 30,000 residents. It is now abandoned except for a few dozen residents due to toxic poisoning of the ground water from over a century's worth of toxic lead and zinc tailings ("chat") dumped in huge piles which people let their kids play on. The mine shafts were also dug directly under the town, sometimes within just feet of the surface, now causing major sinkholes to develop all over the area, some the size of football fields.

By the 90s the risk was well-known and the government began the process of raising the money to buy out all the property in Picher and evacuate the town, as it was clearly simply too undercut and toxic to be safe to live in anymore. 30% of the Picher children had some level of learning disabilities from lead poisoning and 75% of them were reading below their grade level in school compared to less than 30% in other OK towns of similar size.

During the process of trying to convince residents to leave, in May 2008, a powerful F4 tornado leveled 20 city blocks of the south side of Picher, killing several residents and hastening the town's official abandonment. On June 2009 the last residents said their final goodbyes at the high school and shut off the lights for the last time.

Featured on the American Television Series "Life After People"(2010) on the History Channel.

www.abandonedok.com/picher/

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W48CEr4ctv4&feature=related
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picher,_OK
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   36°59'2"N   94°49'53"W

Comments

  • The May 10 tornado might be the straw that broke Picher's back. It will likely end up abandoned. God bless the residents.
  • It was already broken as broken can be. Even when my aunt lived in Treece she said government workers would come by and tell people not to let their kids play in the creeks and on the chatpiles, but people would just laugh and ignore them. Nobody seemed sick so why worry? Then all the learning disabilities came out and the blood tests proved them right, fully 30% of the Picher kids had some level of lead poisoning, but there's STILL people in Picher now who refuse to admit the town's toxic. Country doesn't mean stupid, but ain't nobody stupider than an Okie dumbass with his mind made up. I'm just glad the kids don't have to suffer anymore.
This article was last modified 10 years ago