Information Sheet
R Picher (Okla.).
754 Collection, ca. 1975-1995.
Three folders, photocopies.
These are
pamphlets and scrapbooks of newspaper items concerning the development and
decline of the lead and zinc mining industry at Picher, Ottawa County, Oklahoma. There is also information on other mining
communities in the Tri-State Mining District of Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
Named after the
Picher Lead Company (later the Eagle-Picher Lead Company), the town of Picher, Oklahoma,
was founded in 1915. The company had extended
its operations in Oklahoma after several
decades of lead and zinc mining around Joplin, Missouri, and Galena,
Kansas. The opening of the Picher field ushered in
the last great mineral development in what became known as the Tri-State
District. Only a dozen years after its
founding, Picher had become the center of the largest lead and zinc mining
district in the world. Mining waned in
the 1930s, but Eagle-Picher succeeded in consolidating milling operations at a
central mill and was the dominant force in the field by the Second World
War. Postwar re-milling of chat piles
and “gouging” of marginal ore bodies proceeded off and on through the 1950s and
1960s, after which most mines were abandoned.
Picher boomed
through the 1920s, struggled in the 1930s, and experienced a brief heyday in
the 1940s. Since mining played out,
population has dwindled to a fraction of what it once was. The town itself also began to disappear,
quite literally in some cases as portions caved in due to mine subsidence. Governmental aid has enabled the town to
survive, but its future remains uncertain as a result of other environmental
problems associated with its legacy of mining.
Folder 1
contains two pamphlets concerning the town of Picher.
One is a reprint of a “12th Birthday Anniversary” (1927)
pamphlet. The other was published in
1975 as an American Bicentennial project.
Both include historical information and advertisements of local
businesses.
Folder 2
contains a “Tri State Zinc District Scrapbook,” devoted to Picher and
neighboring communities, compiled by Garnet L. Hood, the daughter of a miner
who grew up in Picher. It consists of
newspaper clippings, ca. 1975-1995, with occasional annotations by the
compiler. The theme generally is the
history of Picher, but other mining towns such as Commerce, Miami,
and Quapaw, Oklahoma, and Galena, Kansas,
are also included. Other subjects are
the history of mining in the Tri-State district and development of the
Eagle-Picher Lead Company, tributes to miners and other notable individuals of
the region such as Mickey Mantle, who was a native of Commerce, various
anecdotes, and reminiscences. A subject
guide compiled by the donor is at the end of the folder.
Folder 3 is
another scrapbook compiled by Garnet L. Hood.
It consists primarily of clippings of newspaper articles by Ben Moody
of Miami, Oklahoma,
published in the Tri-State Tribune. The son of a district miner, Moody became the
head of Eagle-Picher’s land, lease, and tax department, dealing primarily with
leases held by members of the Quapaw tribe.
His stories include reminiscences of growing up in Picher, the history
of the Tri-State district, its mines, and the Eagle-Picher Company, stories of
miners, operators, and superintendents, and community life in the small towns
of the Picher district. A subject guide
prepared by Garnet Hood is at the end of the folder.
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