Picher, Oklahoma

Urban exploration in Oklahoma
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GlassCurtain
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by GlassCurtain »

Yeah heard on NPR the other day that they finally took the Government buyout and they're relocating the remaining 40 residents. Haven't been through since but every time I go through it, there's a cop sitting in the middle of town. Probably gone now though but be careful.
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Fiend
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RE: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by Fiend »

Yeah, I figured there would be some sort of security out there. Thanks for the heads up.
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by cousin »

all the residents bitch about how nasty it is and get us out of here to the media, but anytime anyone wants to go snooping around, the get the tune of gt the fuck out of here, this is my/our land...

law enforcement actively patrols the area.
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by SweetTater78 »

We have been through there twice now....went through Cardin once and Treece once. As of right now, the EPA is installing air monitors in Treece (according to our news station in Wichita). Both times we were in Picher, though, there were quite a few houses still occupied.
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RE: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by Fiend »

Alright, went there Saturday with two friends. We had zero issues getting into buildings. No security of any kind. In fact, many building just had the front door wide open... We only saw one sheriff and he was just driving through. There are some people still living there, but not very many. Most of the town is deserted. Spent several hours there driving around and checking out places. I took alot of pics, but here are a few.

I guess this is kind of an inside joke in the surrounding towns...
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U.S. property? Hell yeah I'm gonna trespass
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Walking around on the chat piles made me feel like I was kind of walking around on the moon or mars, very odd terrain
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Inside the highschool which is now completely deserted, along with the houses surrounding it.
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by Scout »

Great pics. I knew some chicks who taught at the school. Went to college with them. As you saw, basically Treece, KS is the same town, just across the state line. They run into each other. Surprising that you had so little trouble gaining access. Stay out of the chat piles if you go back. Doubtful you would get polluted just by walking around in them, but why take the chance as there's nothing to see in them anyway. The buildings are a lot more interesting. I'd like to see in the High School. Where'd y'all park to not draw the poleeece attention?
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RE: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by Fiend »

Thanks! Yeah, I basically covered the entire area, including Treece, which there was an area where the EPA was doing some sort of terraforming to a large area. Yeah, we didnt spend too much time on the chat piles. I started to get an irritated throat and a slight cough after the wind picked up. I dont have allergies so I would assume it was dust from the chat. I'm good now though, the doctors say the third arm should fall off in a few days haha. Yeah, the buildings were alright, and I was surprised at how much stuff was left in them. There were even houses, nice 3 bedroom 2 bath houses completely deserted and with the front door unlocked. We just parked right in fron of the houses and walked right in, no one around to even care. Same way with the school, although a few people did drive by and see us, but it looked like they didnt care. The only busy road is the main highway that runs through town. That where we saw the one and only law enforcement vehicle, and it was from another town just passing through. Basically we had the run of the town. The remainin residents were either oblivious to our presence or they didnt care. Nothing in that area was off limits to us. I didnt find all that much mining equipment though, which is what I really wanted to find. I didnt find any mines either, but I wasnt looking for them, and I heard most of them were sealed up anyways.
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by SweetTater78 »

Great pics!! We went through last Saturday as well (we also found Eastern State Hospital in Vinita, OK that day too...very cool!)...I still saw quite a few lights on, so utilities must still be on (didn't hear any generators)...I thought they were supposed to shut off the utilities at the first of September...??
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by Scout »

Fiend, if you want to see the entrance to some mines, there are some directly north of there in Kansas. I don't always pay attention, but heading north on US HWY 69, you should see some north of Riverton and south of Pittsburg on the east side of the road. These are on private property. You can see the entrances with iron doors. Look close.

This is what is so odd. This is Federal money closing Picher, but Treece, just across the state line and probably every bit as polluted, is ignored. They practically made people move out of Picher. In fact, in the end, they may have made the holdouts move. Some people had pretty nice places and had lived there all their lives, possibly with no ill effects (I'm not that well-versed on the particulars of all the individuals' health concerns down there.) In fact, cancer is elevated in incidences' all throughout that area and over a lot of the Four States as well. I'm waiting to see the government pay to move everybody out of Webb City, Missouri where there is a Superfund site on the edge of town...Like that would ever happen!
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by SweetTater78 »

Webb City? I will have to check into that one. Didn't know there was one there as well. I had also heard they are to be monitoring in Pittsburg soon as well...I highly doubt anything will ever come af that though. Too many people...
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by Willard »

SweetTater78 wrote:Webb City? I will have to check into that one. Didn't know there was one there as well. I had also heard they are to be monitoring in Pittsburg soon as well...I highly doubt anything will ever come af that though. Too many people...
Actually it's between Webb City and Carterville... the mine field between the two towns is closer to being cleaned up than anyone thinks (I drove through there just last month and a lot of the old mine chat had been removed).
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

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I don't know where the actual Superfund site begins but there is one that runs right up to the park on the south edge of Webb City. There are mines all through the area. I was being sarcastic in that indeed, too many folks and too much money to clean it all up.

A couple of foreign students somehow got off into a strip pit and drowned a few years back and Bob Dole was all hot to clean up the area. Of course more than likely the heirs of the people who stripped it out and made it into the most polluted area in the country probably would get the contract to do all the cleaning. Plus the fact that most strip pits are grown over and all moving the dirt around will do is get all the carcinogens stirred up and in the air.

I live near Iola in Kansas. In the early part of the 20th century this town of around 6,000 was about 20,000 people due mainly to the smelters east of town. A lot of the ore mined around Joplin was brought up here and melted down. High lead and contamination levels in many areas of the town. Higher incidences of cancer in most of the four states than in most of the rest of the country. It's a fact of life. The things that allowed industry and science to make our lives better also had drawbacks.
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by cousin »

The area between Webb City and Carterville has come a long ways in the last few months. There are two companies working full time re-claiming the sites. The land is designed to be for housing once it's completed. Yes they are filling alot of the mines that are at issue.

I drive by the site atleast twice a day.
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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by Fiend »

Scout wrote:Fiend, if you want to see the entrance to some mines, there are some directly north of there in Kansas. I don't always pay attention, but heading north on US HWY 69, you should see some north of Riverton and south of Pittsburg on the east side of the road. These are on private property. You can see the entrances with iron doors. Look close.

This is what is so odd. This is Federal money closing Picher, but Treece, just across the state line and probably every bit as polluted, is ignored. They practically made people move out of Picher. In fact, in the end, they may have made the holdouts move. Some people had pretty nice places and had lived there all their lives, possibly with no ill effects (I'm not that well-versed on the particulars of all the individuals' health concerns down there.) In fact, cancer is elevated in incidences' all throughout that area and over a lot of the Four States as well. I'm waiting to see the government pay to move everybody out of Webb City, Missouri where there is a Superfund site on the edge of town...Like that would ever happen!
Thanks for info on the mines, I was wanting to see them, I probably wouldnt try to venture into them since they are old and caving in. Yeah I thought the same thing when I went into Treece, I thought it was strange that basically the same area with the same polluted water table and chat piles was not apart of the superfund site... And there were some nice houses in perfect condition that were just deserted.

Take this one for example, it was right next to the abandoned high school, it had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, good size and not a thing wrong with it. Oh, and the front door was unlocked, we just walked right in. I noticed that all abandoned structures had "TBC" spray painted on them, I'm guessing its some sort of EPA code.

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Re: Picher, Oklahoma

Post by Willard »

Fiend wrote:I noticed that all abandoned structures had "TBC" spray painted on them, I'm guessing its some sort of EPA code.
TBC = To Be Condemned
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