So being here is southwest Missouri there isnt much to take pictures of so sometimes you gotta do some traveling. One place I like to go is northeast Oklahoma, north of Miami was one of the largest iron and zinc producers in the country. But after decades of use the ground wanter became contaminated and the industry fell apart. So now you have 2 ghost towns in the Quapaw Reserve area (Ottawa County)Picher, Cardin, and soon Treece Kansas.
All the white parts are contaminated chat piles which are a by-product of the mining.
Some of the piles are several hundred feet high and the locals love to sled down them.. You can see the toxic dust being kicked off the tops of the piles when the winds pick up.
Then a tornado hit the area in 2008 and destroyed pretty much everything and then the federal buy outs began.. There are still maybe 4 or 5 families there but they lack schools, police (there are federal marshals posted up at the high school to try to stop the arsons in the area), a fire department, and a post office.
This last visit we went just to Cardin (there were way too many people floating around Picher.. Most people were sledding on the chat piles but I dont like attracting attention while urban exploring) . There was about 18" of snow on the ground which made things interesting to say the least. We also met some older people who were driving through and talked to us about how the town used to be. Had like 6 general stores and a person got shot back in the 1960's in front of the post office where we were standing lol... Anyway here are za shots.
