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A ghost town revival
The parade revives the abandoned mining town once home to 14,000 residents before toxic contamination forced evacuation, marking its 11th annual gathering since 2015.
- On the first Saturday of each December, the Coming Home for Christmas parade returns Picher, Oklahoma for one morning, now in its 11th year with vehicles assembling near Connell Street and East 20 Road.
- Room-and-Pillar mining left vast underground rooms and pillars beneath Picher, and when mining companies left after World War II, they removed pumps, allowing groundwater and runoff to flood the workings.
- A 1994 Indian Health Service test found 35 percent of native children had lead levels above the CDC's threshold, while Picher and Cardin postal branches closed in 2009 and federal buyouts began.
- The Tar Creek Superfund designation in 1983 formalized the area's toxic legacy, with more than 14,000 mine shafts and 70 million tons of mine tailings plus 36 million tons of mill sand and sludge beneath the town.
- Community artifacts like the Chat Rats and a gorilla statue near the Gary Building continue to anchor memory, documented by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Oxford American, on land tied to the Quapaw tribe and relied on the Bureau of Indian Affairs for rights.
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13 Articles
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Total News Sources13
Leaning Left0Leaning Right2Center5Last UpdatedBias Distribution71% Center
Bias Distribution
- 71% of the sources are Center
71% Center
C 71%
R 29%
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