Betty sent me this outstanding video about the demise of the town of Picher, Oklahoma. Picher is 1/4 mile off Route 66 east of Afton. I've written about it several other times on this blog because I'm somewhat obsessed by the sad story of this town which died not because of the opening of the interstate like so many Route 66 towns, but instead as the result of irresponsible lead and zinc mining in the area. Please watch it. Thanks.
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9 comments:
Laurel,
It may just be my viewer, but the video is displaying with (I'm guessing) about 20% of the video on the right side cropped out of the frame. I just looked and didn't find the film on YouTube. Would you, please, post the link you used to embed the video? Susan
Okay, here it is. Though a YouTube search didn't find this video, puzzlingly a Google search found it on YouTube!??! Anyway, here's the link for anyone who might have had the trouble viewing that I did.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oky1TDrEMIc
Well, know how you look on the Internet for one thing and find a hundred? Happened to me when I went looking for the music video about Pitcher. Here's a video, that if not produced by CNN was obviously aired by them. The precious man interviewed puts a face on this sad story. It also shows the best aerial views I've seen of Pitcher, both now and long ago. I was surprised to see how large Pitcher was, much larger than the single main street I, in my ignorance, thought it was. After years of driving by Pitcher on 66, I turned down the road in March of this year and saw so very little left to indicate that thousands of people once lived there.
I hate when I do that--announce I'm sending a link and then forget to include it! Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=nV0EKE9nGgA
I'm finally at home this afternoon, for the first time in ages, and may have time to try to fix the size of the video. As for the one you sent, I've seen it before and it's wonderful! In fact, I think I may have a DVD copy of it somewhere. Thanks for reminding me!
I always find human destruction fascinating. i've never been through there, but i'd like to go and take pictures. Safty in mind though!
Mick,
Everyone should see Picher. It's one of the most moving sights you'll ever see, particularly if you understand that it was once a boom town. I go there and drive around when I have to straighten out my priorities.
Laurel
Wow! Great video. Marvelous song.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afton,_Oklahoma "The population was 1,118 at the 2000 census, most of the recent population growth was from the near abandonment of nearby towns of Cardin and Picher from ground contamination sites by local mining quarries."
The piece mentions US Route 66 briefly with a photo of some place http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afton_Station_Packard_Museum offering "Packard Service" and then the rest of the page is outdated and useless US Census trivia posted as spacefiller by one of the Wikipedia robot scripts.
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