If you are familiar with Picher, Oklahoma you might be interested to learn about its fate. The area is the center of a superfund site and is being bought out by the government because of the lead contamination.The area is also prone to collapse due to huge underground areas left without support. There are less than 800 residents remaining in the town that at its heyday had over 20,000 residents. My mother-in-law lived in that area and her father worked in the mines. She said that on Saturday evenings the sidewalks and streets were so crowded that you could not push a stroller down them.
My grandfather worked in the mines in Picher/Miami/Commerece area. My husband's uncle owned a mine on the outskirts of Baxter Springs, Kansas. The area is part of our family's heritage. As a child my mom would walk down the railroads and pick up hunks of lead and zinc that had fallen off the railcars. My grandparents had huge plates of pink dolomite lining their flowerbeds. I've even seen large crystals of calcite built into walls of homes. My husband used to go swimming in the strip pits that had filled with ground water. I was lucky enough to collect in the Swally mine when I was a teenager. I got to ride the bucket down into and then again out of the mine. The mine was almost completely water filled by then but I did manage to chip a small sphalerite encrusted plate out of the wall. If only I had been allowed to go collecting sooner!
Yesterday I read an article online telling how the town residents were saying goodbye to the town with a potluck dinner and a parade. Then last night my father called to tell me the town was wiped out by a tornado. He said the local news was calling for people with open pickups to come help carry the injured to hospitals.
Seems as if spring storms hastened the town's destruction and closure.
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news.yahoo.com]
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news.yahoo.com]
