What’s It Like To Visit A Ghost Town Full Of Toxic Waste? Welcome To Picher, Oklahoma…

As recently as 2006, Picher, Oklahoma was a typical little American community. Now it’s a toxic ghost town.

The GPS urges me to continue going straight ahead, but I’m unable to oblige, thanks to a wire fence blocking the road and a daunting sign reading, “U.S. PROPERTY, NO TRESPASSING.”

Huge rock piles, some as tall as 200 feet, surround my rental car on nearly all sides as I navigate a maze of narrow, one-way streets through what used to be the residential community of Picher, Oklahoma.

The rock piles behind the fences are not merely rocks. They’re chat, a toxic mixture of stone, lead and iron, the remnants of decades of mining expeditions. The chat piles are scattered throughout the area and the toxic dust blows in the wind, carrying the hazardous material along with it.

Fortunately, it’s not a particularly windy day, so I (perhaps naively) don’t fear for my own health. I’m not even aware that the ground I’m standing on is extraordinarily unstable and could collapse at any moment.

As I look around at the abandoned buildings and observe what’s left of this place, I’m in awe of the shockingly swift decline of the community.

As recently as 2006, Picher was a normal American small town, with more than 1,000 residents and a school district of 340 students.

Just three years later, every resident had received a buyout check from the federal government, along with a warning that they’d better high tail it out of town ASAP because Picher was a toxic dump affected by lead contamination.

Everyone is gone now. Visiting this place now is freaky. I drove through Picher, Oklahoma on a road trip. Here’s what I saw.

The History of Picher, Oklahoma Timeline: The Rise and Toxic Fall

Ghost towns can be fun, especially places like Rhyolite, Nevada, which was abandoned nearly a century ago and has become somewhat of a tourist attraction. But Picher’s story is far different.

The town was founded in 1913 after workers drilling a hole accidentally discovered lead and zinc. A mining company set up shop, bringing to the region thousands of workers who established Picher, Oklahoma and the nearby town of Treece, Kansas.

The area became a mining mecca, producing most of the metal for the ammunition used in the two World Wars.

As the decades wore on, the mining stopped, but the ground became extremely unstable. Mine shafts would occasionally collapse, sometimes sucking in entire houses or cars.

A 2006 report by the Army Corps of Engineers revealed that much of Picher was facing major sinkhole danger due to mine subsidence.

An earlier study had revealed that 34% of children in Picher had elevated levels of lead in their systems, resulting in the potential for brain damage, so Picher was not exactly topping any “most livable cities” lists.

The government finally shut down the town and offered buyouts for its citizens to begin life anew elsewhere. Most locals were ready to leave, and a majority of those who were still undecided moved on after a 2008 tornado that further devastated the community.

Odd footnote: The poor residents of Treece, Kansas didn’t get their buyouts when Picher did.

The Oklahoma-Kansas border is a dividing line between Environmental Protection Agency jurisdictions, and the EPA folks on the Kansas side still believed the land could be saved.

So despite the pleas of locals, the EPA initially tried to convince the Treece peeps that their town was safe and that the soil could be cleaned up within 10 years.

Finally, in 2010, after a rare bipartisan act of Congress, Treece residents were offered buyouts as well, which nearly all of them accepted.

In 2000, the population of Picher, Oklahoma was 1640. In 2010, it was 20. Today, it’s zero. Such a dramatic change due to the mine issues and chat piles and lead contamination.

What’s it Like to Visit a Toxic Ghost Town?

Being in a ghost town that was abandoned so recently is strange. While passing through town, it was odd to see the Picher Youth Soccer sign and realize that just a few years back, kids were playing games on this field – a field that is one of the most unstable parts of the entire town, according to that Army Corps study.

While the chat piles are fenced off, the rest of the town is still publicly accessible. Ignorant of the unstable ground on which I’m driving, I cover just about every inch of the small community’s roads, checking out the old Christian church, the water tower, a housing complex, an empty phone booth.

There’s absolutely no one else on these side streets, though several Kansas-bound cars do zip past on Route 69, which runs through the heart of what used to be Picher’s business district. Most of the homes are long gone, but a few remain as hollow shells.

There’s very little color left. Everything is brown and gray, just dead foliage and concrete roads and parking lots. Leafless trees and dry weeds have taken over the landscape.

The only splash of color is the bright red base of the giant gorilla mascot, which informs me that the Picher Gorillas captured the state football championship in 1984.

A modern “Neighborhood Watch” sign stands hopelessly next to an abandoned, broken-down dwelling, while a “Drug-Free America” post survives next to the drug store.

Another sign points the way to the nonexistent First Baptist Church, which was torn down in 2011.

“Keep Out!” is scrawled in spray paint across many of the properties, in an effort to keep ghost town tourists such as myself from entering the old buildings. And perhaps to keep away addicts. Yeah, that too.

Addicts and dealers evidently moved into some of the abandoned houses for awhile after the town was deserted.

“Surreal” is not a word I’ve used to describe many places, but it could not be more appropriate here. The lead contamination in Picher has led to a truly strange abandoned place.

More Photos from Picher, Oklahoma

The town’s water tower still stands tall behind a few abandoned business buildings.

Another building that is not only abandoned, but actually falling apart. You can see the roof crumbling:

A few signs of previous life. A “Sorry – closed sign” on a storefront, and a sweatshirt hanging on the other side of the door:

This trailer is empty and no longer has doors or windows. I imagine the local bugs and small critters are now finding it to be a comfortable home.

The most haunting building I found in Picher, OK was this Christian church. You can see it would’ve been a place where people worshiped for years, but now it has lost much of its paint and stands creepily near some trees with no leaves.

The main road leading out of Picher remains a highly-traveled artery connecting Oklahoma to Kansas. There, the building that housed the Picher Mining Museum remains intact, serving as a reminder of the industry that both created and destroyed the town.

UPDATE: The building that used to serve as the Picher Mining Museum burned in a fire and no longer exists. It had been on the National Register of Historic Places. The exhibits and archives had already been sent to other museums in the area after the Tar Creek Buyout, so no exhibits were lost.

The Mining Museum had stood for 88 years and was previously the Tri-State Zinc and Lead Ore Producers Association. After my visit to Picher, the roof of the museum had caved in, so it was only a matter of time before the structure was destroyed, in one way or another.

There has reportedly been at least one Picher documentary, possibly on Netflix, but I’m currently unable to find it. Shoot us a link if you discover any Picher documentaries worth sharing!

In the meantime, here’s a news report video about the history of Picher, Oklahoma:

Can You Visit Picher Today?

Yes, you can still visit the town, just as I did. As of the year 2024, some side roads are closed (due to chat and sinkholes) but the main road that runs through the community still exists and will still take you past town into Kansas.

There aren’t a lot of hotels in the vicinity, so Picher is probably best for road trips. You can pass through this strange ghost town and then keep moving onto your next destination.

Picher remains one of the best ghost towns in the South of the United States, as there simply aren’t too many in existence today.

The nearest major cities to Picher are Tulsa, Oklahoma (97 miles away / 1.5 hour drive) and Springfield, Missouri (94 miles away / 1.5 hour drive.)

Where should you stay if you want to visit the toxic ghost town? The closest hotel in a nearby small towns is the Baxter Inn in Baxter Springs, KS (7 miles away.) I stayed at the Hampton Inn in Miami, Oklahoma (9 miles away.)