Ghost Towns Of Oklahoma

Lists 130 ghost towns in alphabetical order and includes descriptions of each.

The history of Oklahoma runs through the thousands of towns that sprang up in the wake of statehood and even before then—readable in the traces of bygone days, if you know what to look for. In Here Today, Jeffrey B. Schmidt conducts readers, armchair travelers and adventurers alike, through places that tell Oklahoma’s story: towns all but disappeared, waning, or persisting despite the odds. Part travelogue, part field guide, part history, the book—replete with photos, maps, and GPS coordinates—documents the rise and fall of one hundred of these towns, from the arrival of pioneers and settlers to the rise of buildings and businesses to the decline that came with natural disasters, manmade crises, and cultural change. Schmidt provides an enlightening look at what has made these towns work—the role of roads and railways, public schools and churches, community building and commerce, and, perhaps most significant, the official recognition that a post office conferred. He notes the oil strikes, coal mines, intriguing crimes, violent weather, and twists of fortune that played into the fate of each; points out the landmarks that still stand and the shadows of those that have succumbed to indifference, destruction, or the passage of time; and puts the story these towns tell into the larger context of westward expansion, Native American history, and, in the case of the many all-Black towns, discrimination and segregation. Whether visiting ghost towns or small towns that still draw on the power of rural resilience to survive and even thrive, Here Today offers a rare chance to travel through the state’s history before its remnants may be gone tomorrow. Representing the extraordinary extent of Schmidt’s research, legwork, and mining of archives and data sources, the book preserves for all time a vanishing vision of Oklahoma.

The history of Oklahoma runs through the thousands of towns that sprang up in the wake of statehood and even before then—readable in the traces of bygone days, if you know what to look for. In Here Today, Jeffrey B. Schmidt conducts readers, armchair travelers and adventurers alike, through places that tell Oklahoma’s story: towns all but disappeared, waning, or persisting despite the odds. Part travelogue, part field guide, part history, the book—replete with photos, maps, and GPS coordinates—documents the rise and fall of one hundred of these towns, from the arrival of pioneers and settlers to the rise of buildings and businesses to the decline that came with natural disasters, manmade crises, and cultural change. Schmidt provides an enlightening look at what has made these towns work—the role of roads and railways, public schools and churches, community building and commerce, and, perhaps most significant, the official recognition that a post office conferred. He notes the oil strikes, coal mines, intriguing crimes, violent weather, and twists of fortune that played into the fate of each; points out the landmarks that still stand and the shadows of those that have succumbed to indifference, destruction, or the passage of time; and puts the story these towns tell into the larger context of westward expansion, Native American history, and, in the case of the many all-Black towns, discrimination and segregation. Whether visiting ghost towns or small towns that still draw on the power of rural resilience to survive and even thrive, Here Today offers a rare chance to travel through the state’s history before its remnants may be gone tomorrow. Representing the extraordinary extent of Schmidt’s research, legwork, and mining of archives and data sources, the book preserves for all time a vanishing vision of Oklahoma.

Ghost Towns In Oklahoma - Washington County is the first book in a series covering over 300 towns in Oklahoma that have been identified as Ghost Towns. This first book will cover places like Ringo, Owen, Silver Lake, Oglesby, Hillside, Enosville, and brief information on some of the smaller settlements that were identified. Ghost Towns are locations (towns, settlements, trading posts, etc.) that existed in Oklahoma in its early years. Some still exist and some are long gone and only exist in the memories and accountings from people that lived there.

Ghost towns lie all along the Mother Road. The quintessential boom-and-bust highway of the American West, Route 66 once hosted a thriving array of boomtowns built around oil mines, railroad stops, cattle ranches, resorts, stagecoach stops, and gold mines. Join Route 66 expert Jim Hinckley as he tours more than twenty-five ghost towns, rich in stories and history. Includes directions for when you take your trip. Complemented by Kerrick James’ gorgeous sepia-tone and color photography. Explore the beauty and nostalgia of these abandoned communities along America’s favorite highway!

On May 10, 2008, a tornado struck the northeastern Oklahoma town of Picher, destroying more than one hundred homes and killing six people. It was the final blow to a onetime boomtown already staggering under the weight of its history. The lead and zinc mining that had given birth to the town had also proven its undoing, earning Picher in 2006 the distinction of being the nation’s most toxic Superfund site. Recounting the town’s dissolution and documenting its remaining traces, Picher, Oklahoma tells the story of an unfolding ghost town. With shades of Picher’s past lives lingering at every intersection, memories of its proud history and sad decline inhere in the relics, artifacts, personal treasures, and broken structures abandoned in disaster’s wake. In Todd Stewart’s haunting photographs, faded snapshots and letters, well-worn garments, and books and toys give harrowing and elegiac testimony of constancy and dislocation. Empty buildings and bared foundations stand in silent witness to the homes, schools, churches, and businesses that once defined life in Picher. As these photographs and Alison Fields’s accompanying essays explore the otherworldly town teetering over massive sinkholes, they reveal how memory, embedded in everyday objects, can be dislocated and reframed through both chronic and acute instances of environmental trauma. Though hardly known outside the Three Corners Region of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, the fate of Picher echoes well beyond its borders. Picher, Oklahoma reflects the broader intersections of memory, time, material objects, and changing environments, demanding our attention even as it resists easy interpretation.

The ghost towns of Southern California-some dramatic and nearly intact, others devastated-are well worth visiting. Most are remnants of once-colorful mining towns, though there are also railroad towns, a World War II relocation center, a promoter's swindle, and a failed socialist colony. Some excellent attractions remain. One of the best-preserved stamp mills in the West is in Skidoo. Smelters, homes, stores, and the remarkable wooden American Hotel can be found in Cerro Gordo, which the author calls "California's best true ghost town." Seasoned back-roads traveler Philip Varney, who has visited nearly a hundred ghost towns in the area, provides a down-to-earth and helpful guide to more than sixty of the best in Southern California and nearby Inyo and Kern counties. He defines a ghost town as a town with a population markedly decreased from its peak, one whose initial reason for settlement no longer keeps people there. It can be completely deserted, have a resident or two, or retain genuine signs of vitality, but Varney has eliminated those towns he considers either too populated or too empty of significant remains. The sites are grouped in four chapters in Inyo County, Death Valley, the Mojave Desert and Kern River, and the regions surrounding Los Angeles and San Diego. Each chapter provides a map of the region, a ranking of sites as "major," "secondary," and "minor," information on road conditions, trip suggestions, and tips on the use of particular topographic maps for readers interested in more detailed exploration. Each entry includes directions to a town, a brief history of that town, and notes on its special points of interest. Current photographs provide a valuable record of the sometimes fragile sites. Southern California's Best Ghost Towns will be welcomed both by those who enjoy traveling off the beaten path and by those who enjoy the history of the American West.