The LARGEST GHOST TOWN in America
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- In this video, we’re going to be invading what happens to be the largest true ghost town in America. Picher, Oklahoma is the name of this forgotten place, and it sits right along the Oklahoma and Kansas Border about a dozen miles west from Missouri.
Intro: 0:00 - 0:56
Encounter with angry local: 0:56 - 1:47
Understanding The Geography of Picher: 1:47 - 5:21
How Picher Became A Mining Boomtown: 5:21 - 10:58
How Picher Became A Ghost Town: 10:58 - 18:03
Former High School Building: 18:03 - 19:52
Health risks of living in the area: 19:52 - 22:03
Cultural things of note about Picher: 22:03 - 23:29
Ghost town of Cardin: 23:29 - 27:44
Ghost town of Hockerville: 27:44 - 29:50
Ghost town of Zincville: 29:50 - 30:55
More Scenes from Picher: 30:55 - 32:15
Ghost town of Treece, Kansas and Final Thoughts: 32:15 - 36:16
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I was in picture back in 07 when I was going to drug court and I was up there for 6 months and they were evacuating the town then because of the contamination to the water and everything it was a kind of creepy though yeah granted but it had been a booming little town for a while there and cute too it's sad that all them houses had to go to waste though I mean not even very old and turn around within 6 months had to be abandoned sadly
Very nicely done Chris consider me subscribing all the way from Australia. It's fascinating the amount of damage corporate greed can do to people that live there, Picher reminds me of the West Australian town of Wittenoom(which was blue asbestos)
Fantastic job. Nice steady camera work, excellent narration on the history of what we are seeing, and especially love the date/time/map stamp at bottom of screen to tell us exactly where we are. Thanks.
Born in Tulsa, Lifelong Tulsa resident. I've driven thru there and it's got a bad vibe.
This was a good, comprehensive documentary well worth watching. The possibility of sinkholes is a great reason to stay away. In tulsa, we have inactive coal mines below a heavily populated area that have open holes in neighborhoods.
Me too. Graduated from the old central high school.
You're right. The energy around Picher is bad
I’ve been to some creepy small Oklahoma towns by the Texas border when driving to Lawton.
I’ve been to Jerome AZ, it is certainly inhabited and is a tourist town! Not abandoned at all!
Oklahoma people are really much more friendly than that person you ment in picher. I remember when people lived there. Then I remember when my parents went by again and suddenly it was empty. Sad very sad. We live between Bartlesville and Tulsa Oklahoma. Much friendlier.
I believe you. Technically that guy was in Kansas so you Oklahoman’s are safe.
Lead poisoning does cause severe mental and thinking issues, dude might be a decent bloke if he spent his life anywhere else.
Another incredible Journalist. It is so nice to know America still has some Great Journalists. Thanks for all you do to get information out.
It reminds me of the legendary Centralia, PA. I actually been through this area about 40 years ago when I was a kid. I briefly lived in the Joplin area back then.
Thanks for the video. I lived the first 11 years of my life in Picher. Dad worked the lead & zinc mines in Picher until they closed. Happiest years of my life were lived there.
My Father Charles Raymond Simmons was valedictorian of the first graduating class of Pitcher Oklahoma Highschool and went on to be an explosives expert. Your research and history of this video is excellent everything's will documented, you had a great overview and comprehensive history and good music, thank you.
Chris! What amazing history and so well delivered. You are commendable for telling stories that you would think people wouldn’t care about, but it truly is the history of manufacturing in the mid West you are expert at sharing. Oh, so happy you played your signature music track towards the end! Thanks bro and congratulations on the new car. Aren’t those made in Mexico now? 🤔
Thanks for the kind words! And yes Blazer’s are made in Mexico
Glad to see my favorite travel CZcamsr cover this! Great work as always!
Thanks!
Interesting video Chris! I did not know these facts. Thank you for the knowledge!❤
Thanks for the kind words as always!
Reminds me a lot of Centralia PA. Minus the smoke of course.. Great episode as always 👏 Thanks for the insight Chris.
That would be another good video to make
Thank you so much for this video I watched it and it's entirety, What brought me here is I was in a rehab called the Ark in Miami, Oklahoma and we would pass by these towns often,seeing thst miais near by. Great video thumbs up 👍🏼
Good video. Keep up the good work. God Bless.🙏
Great vids. I drove down Rt 66 a few years ago and it was great. Met really friendly people in Missouri and good food all along the way.
Very well done. A friend and I visited the Picher area we drove down from Overland Park KS and it was very bizarre seeing it in person.
Thanks! And yes, very bizarre indeed.
I really thought your video was very interesting I never knew anything or heard anything about those towns. Good job on telling the stories about those towns and their History
I hope this can be cleaned up some day. What a disaster. I liked this insightful video.😊❤
Hopefully so! Thanks for watching as always, Joan!
I love your videos, they bring entertainment and history. Keep it up!!!
Thanks! Will do
Very well researched. Sad to see the self-destruction, and realize the many lives that were ruined by diseases because of this toxic chemical disaster; with no end in sight.
I love all of your videos bro 🎉
Thank you!
Very well done.
Great travel , simple explanation of history thank you Marry Christmas 🎄
Merry Christmas!
Reminds me of the videos I've seen on Centralia. Very interesting to hear the history of this town.
I drive through Picher all the time. It's so sad.
wow, spooky. Thanks for sharing. 😕
Chris, not a very happy story to say the least. All this is new to me so thanks for taking time and posting. The only real "Ghost Town" I have been to is in the city of Buana Park in California, it's the Knott's Berry Farm Ghost Town....... Thank again for your time, work and posting.
mike
thanks sir!
I have been to both Picher and Jerome. Jerome is a fun little town with BnB’s, bars, & a thriving arts community. It’s not in the same league of ghost towns as Picher.
Interesting upload.. 👍🏼
OKC coming up?
Thanks, and no only OKC I have is when I upload Route 66 stuff
Very interesting. Sink holes...terrifying. Can sink holes even be fixed?
Sinkholes can be fixed. With lots of money.
It's crazy that there were people living there as recently as the 2000s. This place should have been abandoned much sooner than that.
Agreed. Tough to get the local prideful to move sometimes though even if it means a better life for them. Some ppl just don’t like being told what to do
Mispronounced Miami, Douthat and Peoria. My Dad, his brothers and His Dad worked the mines in Picher. They lived in Quapaw. When I was a kid (early 1970's) the chat piles were huge and guys drove dirt bikes and dune buggies over them.
Mickey Mantle was from that general area. (Baxter Springs/Commerce). His dad “Mutt” worked in the mines, and died young from cancer, or “termites” as Mantle described cancer in his posthumous autobiography “Seven”. Seven vividly described his upbringing, the baseball, and of course the alcohol and womanizing with friend Billy Martin. Mantle died in 1995 following a liver transplant.
I find this very interesting and have recently moved to Wichita Kansas from Washington State and plan on visiting picher in person saw a documentary about it years ago before they tore the buildings down and there were still a few people that refused to leave living there still
Very good Chris, thank you.
Very informative. It makes me think, just how much of the USA is destroyed, toxic and polluted. Is there any place man hasn't exploited and damaged?
Good video and script. 📽🎬✍️
Subscribed does not show up glad u r still at it
CZcams is weird like that sometimes not sure why
I visited a friend in Picher in 1959. It was pretty nice.
I grew up near Stillwater Oklahoma. My grandmother lived in Ft Scott Ks. We would drive thru Picher or near it on our way to Baxter Springs and then on up to Ft Scott. There would be people riding motorcycles and 4AtVs on that mine waste. Today i wonder if those people are still alive. This was back in the 80s when my grandmother was alive so i havent been thru there since probably 1992.
Did Flint get the lead for its water pipes from Picher?
I’ve been to picher ok and mounds and Depew
Great little towns back then
But what is the livability score?..
How awful for that area! I live in a gold mining ghost town in California. They've cleaned up the town from old mining tailings. There's too much arsenic in our local water but they swear its below dangerous levels. My health has declined in the last two out of ten years I've lived here. My lungs are taking a hit.😢
How do "clean up" a site like this? Where do they haul the chat to?
Hope you had a great Christmas and going to Nee Year were is Route 66 all your videos are great Chris Harden from Detroit Michigan
Thanks! Happy holidays to you too! Route 66 stuff will be uploaded sometime within the next year.
You should do a Video of Frisco texas
Drive around the Trinity Site - after the test all the people in the area moved out. Just another sacriface zone that can NEVER be cleaned up
I'm wondering: when the wind is blowing, couldn't some of the dust off of the chat piles still possibly affect people in nearby towns?
Probably happens all the time without anybody realizing it.
I remember as a kid back in the sixties touring s mine there. Went down in some antique elevator. The main thing I remember was the last mile used to pull the carts. He was born underground and had never seen the sun. They brought his feed and water underground. I really felt sorry for him. Supposedly if they brought him above ground he would die.
Hey Chris ❤
Hi!
Where was the hospital located?
I travel through Picher Oklahoma back in 2017 and I was like what the hell happened in this town. Just a couple years ago I decided to look up the Google route I'd taken from KCK to Fort Polk Louisiana and I found I'd traveled through the most TOXIC TOWN in the USA.
Been here. It's a weird place.
No doubt. Strangest place I’ve been that’s for sure
In the great outdoors w/out the sight of any wildlife. That says a lot about toxicity.
how are they getting rid of the stuff?
What are they doing with piles.
I grew up in this town! ❤
Ever expect it to turn into what it is today?
I moved put a year after the tornado!!! Most of my memories where here, I remember just a beautiful place! 😍 I was standing right under the water tower with my grandpa when he pointed and said "there's gonna be a tornado, go tell your dad" I live in those apartments I remember bursting right thru the front room going "dad grandpa said there is gonna be a tornado" not even a second later I'm standing there and the sirens just started going off. I played on those chats we'd run up and down and we would find so many marbles, I'm not sure where the marbles came from but my grandpa would collect them, and he Still has then in vases in front from.
I have almost a near photographic memory of this town and the memories I had there
Do you know where they were taking the toxic chat and how they were disposing it?
Let this be a cautionary tale (like countless others) for those that trumpet deregulation ...
...no paste backfilling? ...oooo, the shareholders must have been extremely happy 'bout that...
Beat it..okie..muh prawperrrtee.
Lol
Hi Chris, you forgot to give Chris livability score 😂
😂
Education: No schools left 0
Crime: No people left 0
Economy: No jobs left 0
History: Full of toxicity 0
Recreational Opportunities: Nothing unless you like playing on piles of toxic chat 0
Cost of living: Place can’t be cheap enough to make anyone want to live there 0
Downtown: Nothing left 0
Amenities: Unless you like exploring abandoned underground mineshafts there’s nothing 0
You just gotta love assholes like that local trying to intimidate you out of the area like he owned everything there. I dont care what you own. If I am on public property and you come at me like that youll find youself needing dental restoration services.
The only time someone came up on me in the hood when flying a drone was a security guard on a power trip. However this the 2nd time a resident in hilljack territory has had a problem with me flying a drone.
It should npt have ever happened! I saw videos by Travel with a Wise Guy, I cried my eyes out!
So means
❤❤👍👍🎄🎄
HEY MAN !! LOVE YOUR VIDS COME BACK TO FLINT MICHIGAN / SWARTZ CREEK / GRAND BLANC AND REVIEW HOW ITS DOING NOW IN 2024
Jerome is a tourist town , nowhere close to being an abandoned ghost town.
Agreed. Thats just the towns way of branding itself towards tourists. Picher on the other hand… yeah… things are different here.
My Grandfather was a miner here. The affects finally killed him in 1939.
It's My-a-muh
I hope you changed your air filter and cabin filter in your suv after driving thru that mess. One more tornado and the rest of anything standing will be leveled.
I took an IQ test once I got back and I scored 2 points dumber.
2 more trips and I might be like the guy at the beginning of the vid.
@@ChrisHarden LOL!!!!!!
I know you probably won't believe me. But my mom's niece Merlyn was married to Mickey mantle.
Where are all the trucks taking that chat to?
A few of those houses had garbage cans at the curb, fire hydrants, power/phone lines - do they keep all that shit functioning for so few? What about pizza delivery?
Miami is pronounced
Mi-am-a not Mi-am-i. Also had relatives that used to live there. And that place is has a really cool place to swim but it's dangerous as it has a mine shaft at the bottom lol. The water actually has a range of colors and a clif with a rope u swing off.
Nah! If Oklahoma is going to take place names from Florida, it should pronounce them like Florida does. There is a small town on Oklahoma called Orlando. Seminole is a small town in Oklahoma. It's also a suburb of Tampa, Florida. Pensacola Dam impounds Grand Lake O' The Cherokees.
Now for a Chris livability score for all the towns in all categories they get a 0/20
Lol yup completely unlivable
I live in southwest Oklahoma every town is a ghost town
I believe it
man its "myamah"
I would imagine that it could be safe to stay here if you drank bottled water
wonder how the animals are doing there
Why isn't 69 routed around Picher? Picher is part of the name Eagle-Picher which is a company that makes batteries.
Checked the real estate at Hockerville, OK: houses listed were, generally, $200,000+. Not so much of a 'ghost town'. . . .
Do a video on Pine Bluff, AR, America's Fastest Shrinking City.
A good location for newly arrived migrants(?).
Pine Bluff would be a good video
Those migrants should be deported ASAP.
U didn’t give your livability index.
Lol
I would like to know where the mine millings are being relocated.
Will they become a problem for a new location.
Seems like it would be cheaper to slumped a system away from the water/Tar creek, to a bio pond, and cover. Like in Flint.
Anyhow. Very interesting.
BTW, Telling the history, Is 100 X better than just showing up and taking video.
Very few channels do this, and other channels say " I am documenting this " Lol, WTF? ( No big deal, if it is a kid, learning video and having fun )
But popping off videos every other day, like it is a job. Just lazy and sad. If you ask me.
Good question. Not sure where it’s all being sent to.
Appreciate the kind words!
@@ChrisHarden it's being used for underlayment In New highway projects in the area. The tribe is able to receive more ey to continue cleanup
Nice town to send the migrants to
👍🫡
Zinc mining town named "Zincville" lmfao
lead
FYI Miami OK is pronounced my-am-ah not my-am-ee
You can tell when someone ain't from Oklahoma. 😂
Hmm. They probably get people mispronouncing their towns name on the daily.
Can confirm 😂 it has more of a drawl to it 😂... My daughter growing up used to say that every time we went there that she wished she had a Yama too 😂
I’ve never heard it called myamah
@@ChrisHardenI remembered hearing people from out of Michigan say Mack-in-nack.
I noticed what looked like the base of a cell phone tower of 5G no doubt might as well throw some radiation in while we're there. lol
Oklahoma just sucks altogether 🤷🏼♀️
Capitalism 101 at it's best