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A little prologue on Picher, myself, etc: Located in the extreme northeast corner of Oklahoma, Picher was once the crown jewel of the nation’s ore industry. I would have never known anything about the town aside from bleak news reports had it not been the hometown of Joe Don Rooney. Joe Don is one of three guys who make up the band Rascal Flatts. Now most of you are either thinking who’s that? or ew, country music! and that’s okay. Just know that to me, the band is amazing. Now Picher, though it once flourished, is experiencing a slow death due a number of things. As in, air supposedly contaminated with lead dust as a result of the mining. It has been designated by the EPA as one of the most toxic areas in the country.

The chat piles that surround Picher look like sand dunes, but they are laced with lead. The dust travels through the town’s air when the wind blows. It has led to unnaturally high blood-lead levels in the children. This was realized in 1980 when test scores at the local elementary plummeted. Shortly after that, the town was condemned by the government. The residents are now awaiting buyouts. Picher will be completely leveled; in three years, it will literally disappear.

The worst part? Picher could be saved. Senator Jim Inhofe introduced a bill that would clean up the town, but later backed out on the proposal. Picher is a passion for me, and it represents far more now than just a celebrity’s hometown.

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The story begins… As much as I dislike the mundane routine, home-schooling does have its advantages. I realized this last Saturday afternoon when my dad left home in Arkansas for Nebraska –flatbedding pipe to the oil fields. Always on guard for any opportunity to break the monotony, I loaded up and went with him. I’m no stranger to trucking – it’s our family business – so I originally set out about the trip with a very blasé mindset. I mean, Nebraska isn’t even a state I’ve never been to. Little did I know that I would actually experience something life-changing in the days, and miles, to come.

The first leg of our run was painfully uneventful. The wind blows nonstop in Nebraska, you know? That should be the eighth wonder of the world or something. We headed back East Monday afternoon, down into Colorado and through the great (incredibly flat) state of Kansas. As we pulled into a truckstop on the third day of our journey, I had no inkling of the opportunity that was about to present itself. I probably never would have had my dad not mentioned, simply for conversation’s sake, that we were going home through Joplin, MO instead of the originally planned Kansas City. Well, when I heard Joplin I was gone. It went something like this: Uh, Dad? Ya know, I can practically spit into Picher from Joplin.

Let’s just stop here and wind the clock back about say, a year. Dad and I hauled a load out to New Mexico. On the way back it dawned on me that I really wanted to see “that little town, remember I told you about it, in Oklahoma?”. I suggested it to him and he agreed, then later looked at the map and promptly retracted his statement. I was miserable. Positively shattered. Of course, back then it meant little more to me than seeing Joe Don Rooney’s hometown, but I was still irreconcilably hurt. I cried all the way from Albuquerque to Arkansas, and Dad bore witness to every single little ol’ tear and sob. Let me tell ya, that crying wore me out. I nearly drown in the sleeper of that Peterbuilt.

So, no doubt recollecting vividly that last episode, he couldn’t very well say no to me this time around. Alright, darlin’, I’ll take you to Picher and you can take some pictures. He consented, after poring over the map and not finding any feasible excuse for not going. We were going to be awfully close.

Needless to say, I was launched to new levels of euphoria and scarcely slept a wink that night. You see, visiting Picher had taken on a whole new glorified meaning for me since my last failed attempt. We’re talking about a town so abandoned by the state of Oklahoma that it has been removed even from the road signs. Without a map or any knowledge of its location you would never find it, unless by accident. Nothing points the way because the desire to go there has long ago burned out. There are even suggested detour routes around it.

Picher’s plight has always moved me; so deeply, in fact, that I believe would have taken up the cause regardless of who had been born there. I was torn to pieces after the May 10th tornadoes, and am guilty of yelling at innocent TV newscasters standing on piles of debris saying things like, “This is the last nail in the coffin of a dying town”. They don’t know the first thing about the feelings that keep Picher’s last citizens inside the city limits.

For any of you locals (love you all to death), we took 400 over through Fredonia, KS and then dropped down on Highway 7. We only got as far as a little town called Columbus when we ran across a barricade and some extremely offensive signs proclaiming the road closed. This disheartened me greatly, and we didn’t know quite what to think. I could tell that Dad wanted to drop it and say better luck next time, but he didn’t. Probably because he could already feel the tears beginning to form over my side of the truck. So we followed the suggested detour route, Alternate Highway 69, until we hit Baxter Springs. What a beautiful little town that is! It looks like it could be next in line for the American Main Street Award or something.

Out of Baxter, we were beginning to wonder if there was enough left of Picher for us to actually recognize it if we came across it. We knew we were close, but there were absolutely no road signs pointing in its direction. Creepiest of all had to be the one sign that we did find it on; listed right beneath nearby Miami, there was a P and an I and the rest was covered up by a board. You have no idea how haunting that was.

I kind of had Dad’s interest at this point, even though he couldn’t resist pointing at a nice, big house and saying: “Look, maybe that’s where ol’ Jay DeMarco moved his kinfolks.” (FYI: Jay DeMarcus is another member of Rascal Flatts. Daddy got them confused.)

Me: Did you just say… DEMARCO?!

Dad: Well, whatever the feller’s name is.

Me: You KNOW what his name is… SAY it.

Dad:*sigh* Joe Don.

Me: Joe Don who?

Dad: Rooney.

It was kind of funny. And then he asked what exactly it was I planned to do once I got there, if I ever did. I thought that that was a rather silly question, and couldn’t help but wax sarcastic by telling him that there was some kind of sacred fangirl ritual I had to perform. Lots of chanting, some smoke. You know, that sort of thing. He didn’t laugh.

Once we slipped in the back door on Alt Highway 69, it seemed that our destination lay straight ahead with nothing in our way. Then Dad happened to notice a sign that said WARNING: NO VEHICLES OVER THIRTY TONS. I hoped he would ignore it, but wouldn’t you know those darn signs just kept popping up! I asked him how much we weighed and he got a little pale, answering, “A #$% of a lot over 30 tons.” Myself, I couldn’t be bothered, so I left the worrying to him as I snapped pictures of the countryside like one insane. It turns out that road has a weight limit because the earth beneath Picher is riddled with mine shafts; a past cave-in swallowed literally several acres of the town. I guess that’s what you call living dangerously.

Let me just make it clear right now that strip mining is an ugly and abominable business. It cuts the land to pieces and leaves it too choppy to be good for anything. In the bigger places, deep trench-like ditches are left to fill with water. Having no outlet, it just stands and becomes stagnant. And all of this is before you actually see the main mining sights.

Just before you cross the Oklahoma line, you will find a whisper of a town called Treece, KS. It too was a mining town in its day, but fell victim to the same fate our beloved Picher is rapidly speeding toward. You will not find Treece on the map anymore, but its skeletal welcome sign still commemorates its place in the faded ore dynasty of Ottawa County.

The Oklahoma line and Picher seem to hit all at once. After the range of bone-white chat piles (laced with lead), the first thing your eyes are drawn to is a proud water tower, white with Picher; Home of the Gorillas since 1918 stenciled in red. I’m under the impression from some of the things I’ve read that this water tower is a fairly new installment, since the previous water supply was contaminated. Thank-you, great and noble state of Oklahoma; you back out on the clean-up bill and opt for buyouts, but at least you build us a water tower. Somebody give Senator Jim Inhofe a big pat on the back for me.

The next thing that meets the eye is the high school’s sign, then you stare down Alt Hwy 69 at what little remains of Picher, Oklahoma. Which is, surprisingly, more than you’d think. I didn’t know what to expect going in. Three buildings and some tornado damage? A smoking hole in the ground? That’s silly. In it’s heyday, Picher boasted a population of 20,000. There were 1,640 in 2000 and are far less than that now, but there are still some.

After a knot of rundown shanties, you will find there stand some older but well-cared for homes. It is then that a lump rises in your throat and you understand why those people have not left yet. Even in its agonizing decline, Picher still musters up as much charm as it can for the rare passerby, and its easy to see it was once just as pretty as Baxter Springs. 69 is lined with small businesses and places of recreation, though all are abandoned. It’s easy to imagine the Country Girl Cafe– now boarded up tight, its coat of pink vastly faded– as it was on a Saturday night in 1970. There is a movie theater, a filling station, and a mining museum/pool hall. All of these are closed. The only sign of life comes from the post office, the city hall, and the funeral home.

I begged Dad to stop, pull over, do something! but he was too concerned that the D.O.T. would come along and impound his rig for being overweight. Go figure. I had to snap pictures as we drove slowly through, and they did not turn out as anything to write home about. I will post them, though, as soon as I get them uploaded. We found the tornado damage, though they (Joe Don included) did a fantastic clean-up job and its easy to see they went about it as people who cherish something greatly. The heart of Picher was untouched, most of the stripped trees and houses appearing on the edge of town.

Not surprisingly, my Dad ended up taking a vested interest in Picher. I think he finds the solemn dedication of my fourteen-year-old personage to this dusty town to be quite inspiring. He wants to go back as soon as possible and, as he puts it, talk to some of these last people. Kind of freeze a moment in time. Obviously, I cannot wait for this to come to fruition and I’ll keep you up-to-date. It was a trip that changed my whole view point on life, and as dramatic as that sounds, it’s every bit true. I close my eyes and see old mine derricks and looming mountains of chat. Picher is a testament to the greed of the human race. The industry that made it brought it down, but the lives of its past and present citizens seems so much more valuable than the lead and zinc purged from beneath it.

Sidenotes… For an excellent song about Picher and the plight of other towns like it, please download “Picher, OK” by The Resurrectionists (available on iTunes). For an excellent website managed by a former resident of Picher, please visit www.picheroklahomagenealogy.com.