Children in Picher, Oklahoma, once sledded down piles of mining waste about 100 feet high that looked like gray sand dunes, according to a report by the Associated Press published on CBS News. Residents held parties on them, too.
The piles, called chat, were leftovers from the lead and zinc that built the town. A strike in late 1913 on Harry Crawfish’s allotment started the boom, and the town was named for O.S. Picher, owner of the Picher Lead Company, per the Oklahoma Historical Society. Picher incorporated in March 1918.
The Tar Creek area supplied raw material for bullets in both world wars, according to CBS News. More than half of the lead and zinc used in World War I came from the Picher field, per the Oklahoma Historical Society. The field produced more than $20 billion in ore between 1917 and 1947.
The population peaked at 14,252 in 1926, per the historical society. More than 14,000 men worked in the mines at the boom’s height. Miners included the father of Major League Baseball player Mickey Mantle, according to CBS News.
Mining operations ceased in 1967, per the Oklahoma Historical Society. Problems soon began surfacing. High lead levels turned up in the blood of local children, as the town sat on old mine tunnels, CBS News reported. A 1967 collapse took in nine homes, and sinkholes were so common that the city park was fenced off.
A 2006 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study found more than 100 homes in danger of falling into old mines, per CBS News.
A buyout followed. The Lead-Impacted Communities Relocation Assistance Trust made 878 buyout offers, and 96% were accepted, according to the Associated Press.
On May 10, 2008, a tornado killed six people and damaged or destroyed more than 150 homes, per the AP. The buyout cost about $46 million, roughly $10 million under the projected $55 million to $60 million, according to an audit cited by the AP.
On Sept. 1, 2009, Picher’s incorporated status was canceled, per the Oklahoma Historical Society. The population fell from 1,640 in 2000 to 20 in the 2010 census, mostly thanks to the buyout.
One holdout was Gary Linderman, who rejected a $95,000 offer for his business, Ole Miners Pharmacy, the AP reported in 2010. He stayed open as the demolition crews arrived. He later became known as the town’s “last man standing,” per All That’s Interesting, and died in 2015.
Picher is not the only town to empty out after the ground beneath it failed. Congress set aside $42 million in 1983 to move Centralia, Pennsylvania, off a burning coal seam, and by 2020 the town was down to five residents.
Related: In 1944, Curtis Springer claimed 12,800 acres of Mojave land and built Zzyzx; the government evicted him in 1974
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