Picher, Ok - A Modern Ghost Town

Picher used to be a zinc and lead mining town until 1970. In 2006, the federal government made it a superfund site to clean up the toxic waste, and paid people to leave. The piles of mine waste (called chat) around the town and neighboring areas are blowing around freely. Some of the piles even looked like they were moving, alot like sand dunes in Saudi Arabia which are slowly moving and sometimes swallow towns. The chat in the air is believed to increase the cancer rates and the amount of autistic children in this town.

We drove through it on our way home from Kansas City in April and wondered why it was abandoned so we looked it up. Here are some sites:

http://personalmoneystore.com/moneyblog/2009/06/30/picher-oklahoma/

http://www.grandlakevisitor.com/pichersuperfundsite

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picher,_Oklahoma

A building damaged by tornado.


An abandoned home.


The environmental clean up crew.


The Museum of Mining for the area.


Picher Water Tower.


The Gorilla for the Picher Schools.




One of the many chat piles scattered around the area. There were about five right in town.