How this Oklahoma Town Became Completely Uninhabitable 

As an inhabitant of Twitch, i already knew chat was garbage

Sam from Wendover, please don't send Amy into the uninhabitable city of Picher in Oklahoma

Chat killed the town

Hi Sam! I really appreciate Amy dressing up as a giant gorilla and posing for pictures in an industrial wasteland. She deserves a raise!

PICHER! One thing not mentioned: The town of Treece, Kansas, was separated from Picher by... the establishment of Oklahoma in 1907. The state line cut it off, so it became first North Picher, then Treece. Because of the way EPA has regions, Kansas was in a different region than Oklahoma, so residents of Treece were not offered a buyout when Picher was because one region didn't know what the other was doing. The EPA later flew some high-ranking guys out (I covered this hilarious event for a local newspaper) and were convinced to offer Treece residents a buyout, too. Like Picher, Treece no longer exists. Also, I work for USDA now, and Sam has used our/my team's products/graphs/charts for several recent videos. It's always exciting to share that other people see and share our work.

Most of the members of the Quapah Nation were opposed to mining in Picher from the very beginning. The mining company sued tribe members and had the courts declare them legally incompetent, forcing them into contracts to lease their land.

Amy is a great writer. Great episode Amy. You deserve a raise of at least 11%

Half as Habitable: A new channel where Sam goes to places he isn't likely to survive

I was a freshman in high school living in Kansas while this was going on, neighboring town Treece just over the OK border was also affected, and I will never forget this being the eye opening reason I realized none of my classmates watched the news. I was on the computer in the school library and the science teacher asked a class of seniors about this story, none of them knew about it. I was sitting there silently fuming because it technically wasn't my class. the next morning the same teacher talked to our freshman class about it and again, nobody else knew what she was talking about, but at least I got to say it this time lol. it was truly one of those "lived experience" moments where you realize the way you grew up isn't the same as the way everyone else grew up. I'd always watched the morning news before school, since elementary, it was basically a ritual for me, and I assumed other people my age did the same thing but then this came up and I realized I was the weird one 😂

Going to OU for environmental engineering, learned a lot about the passive restoration efforts to remove the metals in Tar Creek because OU had a large part in it. They started with the goal of just cleaning up the tributaries so the water could be reintroduced to the river, but even wildlife has slowly started to come back, even otters and beavers!

My grandma was born in Treese and raised in Picher. She left in 1950 for nursing school. My great-grandfather worked in the mines in the 1930s and 40s. He died of lung cancer in the early 60's. My grandma always told stories of how she got to go into the mines with her dad once in a while, elevators going hundreds of feet down and whatnot. Told us about playing in the chat piles after school, using pieces of scrap sheet metal to sled down the piles. Which i did once myself as a kid when we went to Picher for my great-grandmas funeral. That was in 94. Even then the town was very much going down hill, but there were still plenty of people there. It's wild how quickly it went over the cliff in the years after.

Used to live there as a very young child until my parents decided that raising a child next to giant piles of lead piles was a bad idea and moved.

7:09 "it stops being poison when it becomes road" sounds like a teaser for a Times Beach Missouri video

"I SeNt aMy to ThiS UniNhaBitAble OklAhOma TowN"

5:45 It's pronounced Mi-ah-mah! -Every Oklahoman

4:05 It's Cadmium, not Cadium

We live in an era where HOI vids are 9 minutes long

Theres a great metal band called Chat Pile. They're OKC based & of course the name comes from what you've described.

chat, is this real?

This by-product of mining a toxic metal, you think it's dangerous? "Nah, let children play with it"

I used to live in Southeast Kansas about 90 miles from Picher. I went through or visited when it was still a lively town, during its decline, and after the end. The Gorilla was the high-school's mascot. The old high school is used by the Quapaw Nation as an emergency center with fire trucks and an ambulance. The football press box was sold to Columbus High School to replace one that burned down and the bleachers of the softball field were moved to Cherokee High School when they wanted to start a softball team (both are in Kansas). One of the last graduates of the high school is the head softball coach at Fort Scott Community Colllege and guided the team to its first juco national tournament appearance. The town is gone but it has a legacy that lives on.

And let me guess, the mining company never set aside any money for this and so now we are paying for it all

3:55 "slowly gave them lead poisoning... booooo :( " Sam from Wendover productions definitely wrote this

I actually know about the gorilla statue. It's the mascot for the nearby university at Pittsburg in Kansas, Pittsburg State University. The construction department has students create these statues to grade and later donate them to locals.

We are already in the mid-20s... We might need to specify which 20s now 🙃

As usual, the government and locals pay the price for the recklessness of capital

My biggest problem with this episode was the fact that the Jenga-like game people were playing in one of the video segments was clearly NOT Jenga, and it looks so wrong!

Native Oklahoman here, this town has affected my family in so many ways.... my mothers uncles all died from lung cancers and only one of them was a smoker but they all lived and worked in Picher I have climbed and played on all those chat piles and have even sled down the really tall one just for fun! (in the 90's) I can't wait to see what happens to me in the coming decade from this stupidity lol

1A State Football Champs 1984 Never change small town Oklahoma.

Real Chat Pile fans already know about this town lol

Sounds like we heard that story for at least 3 times. Its always the same: some big company does business and after a while, no body can live there anymore and hast to either move away or dies because of it. Thats the american dream.

5:09 I had to stop the video to comment on the absolutely egregious Jenga cheating in this stock footage.

Omg is this where the band Chat Pile got their name? :o 4:08

Wasn’t expecting an hai video about my favorite 2020s sludge metal band but I’m here for it

Another important fact is when they flooded the mines and it started feeding into tar creek this river goes to a really popular lake called grand lake. Really expensive homes all over out there and nobody really knows they are swimming in mostly run off from the mines

That’s life in Oklahoma, you survive all kind of imprudent odds just to be taken out by a tornado.

Oklahoma is already uninhabitable trust me

I live in a town only five miles east of Picher. It's more than just Picher that's contaminated. So is Tar Creek and much of the top soil in areas around Picher. They test kids for lead levels every year for school. People who were born here, and in Picher itself (thank God I moved here and wasn't born here) sometimes have serious health problems. They used to dig up contaminated top soil and replace it when high levels were found, unfortunately wind picks lead dust up off the chat piles and spreads it all over the area. Within a few years, the new clean soil was contaminated as well. In the town of Miami, there's an old Goodrich plant that's half demolished. There's a three block radius around it called " the benzene zone". The soil in these areas has benzene contamination from the Goodrich plant. I live in a deceptively beautiful looking wasteland. 😅

As someone born and raised in Miami, OK - this rings true!

i love at 5:48 you talk about people moving out and show stock footage of people moving in, played in reverse 🤣

As someone who is from NE Oklahoma, I'm so glad you pronounced Miami correctly!

"How this Oklahoma Town Became Completely Uninhabitable, Aside From Being In Oklahoma" I fixed it for you.

I grew up close to this town in SWMO. Drove through it a few weeks ago! It’s definitely a haunting drive.

And a lot of people want to disband the EPA? As in "what the fuck?"

Omg thank you so much for covering Picher!!!! For anyone interested in reading more, check out "The Town of Silent Poison" by Keep Curious Co. The story is so much more insane and corrupt than can be done justice here.

Shoutout to Chat Pile the band for teaching me this already

And the companies that did all the poisoning? No responsibility huh

Chat has entered the Picher

I always thought it funny how chat magically became inert once you loaded it up on a truck, and shipped it somewhere else.

Something mad weird happened, I’m on a road trip so I was bored while going through Oklahoma, I saw this town and was really confused with the splotches everywhere, only for this video to pop up in my feed. Neat.

So, let me get this straight: is this an highly poisonous area filled with buildings that could crumble at any time which you can easily go to? How is this not a restricted area?

"Chat"?! Never heard that before. I thought it was called 'tailings'...

i recognize Picher as the other half of Eagle-Picher

Crazy story. I drove through very near this area for the first time (Route 66) about a week ago. With towns like Galena, KS it was clear that mining was going on but we missed Picher.

Guys, listen to the band Chat Pile. Their music is very normal and approachable

I'm 21 and have lived in Oklahoma my entire life. I had never even heard of Picher until earlier this year

so THAT'S how the band chat pile got their name!

I drove through this place a couple of years ago and it's eerie to see the empty plots of land and foundations and the giant piles of chat.

Hell yea Chat Pile is one of the best bands from Oklahoma

there’s a really good band from oklahoma called Chat Pile that i recommend highly

lemme guess, a few already rich people got much much richer off this travesty, and all the people working the mines for years and years got starvation wages and lifelong diseases

7:07: "it stops being poison when it starts being road" Times Beach, Missouri: "Are you sure about that?"

In 2016 I was storm chasing and we had a few days where it was quiet. Naturally we decided to visit Picher and all I can say is wow. What makes it cooler is that in 2004 a lot of buildings were wiped out by a tornado and on the day we were there, there was an active work site by the former high school. It was surreal to be there

I knew it you shouldn’t live in OKlahoma you should live in GOODlahoma

It's a sad yet interesting story I've known about for a while, glad to see more coverage of it!

I am a resident in oklahoma and have visited pitcher on several occasions there are around 15 people living there and the abandoned houses can still be explored i have a video on my page where me and my friend look through a house in pitcher but the residences are not fond of people coming in just to look around despite the historical landmark that it is.

Uninhabitable Land: *Exists* Half as Interesting: “SEND IN THE AMY!”

Huh, so this is what the band Chat Pile is about 🤔

Once again the cost is socialized and the profit privatized. American capitalisim in a nutshell.

A new place to look at with the time-lapse feature of Google Earth. By the way, as part of my summer vacation, I went to a town called Knurow, which is dotted with coal mines all throughout the town. They are all easily visible, because the tops of the elevators form giant towers which can be seen for kilometers. A part of the town is known as Szczyglowice, and to the east of a city of apartment blocks and one abandoned Stokrotka, there are piles and piles of "chat", but it probably isn't very toxic because this is coal and not lead, and the fact that the older piles are growing trees.

I went to college at Pittsburg University in Kansas about 45 minutes north east of Picher. Never stopped and walked around but intentionally drove through Picher a few times between 2009 and 2014. The chat piles were massive and everywhere. There are also hundreds of old open pit and below ground coal mines all over south east Kansas. The below ground ones frequently collapse causing yards, streets, houses, and fields to suddenly subside.

Actually, Miami, Oklahoma is pronounced "My-am-uh." I don't blame you for not knowing so, as it is very frustrating because it's pronounced Miami everywhere else.

Hell yeah, people used to skii on those chat piles. NE Oklahoma baby

I drove through Picher once last year. I was completely shocked, never heard of it. Didn’t know its history until I googled it that night.

Reminds me when Tom Scott talked about the City of Asbestos in Canada

Before starting the video, me: "It's gonna be mining!" It was mining. Bonus cameo of the federal government screwing the native americans...again.

4:20 JUDAS PRIEST MENTIONED 🥰

Wait so you're telling me this is where the term Chat Pile comes from???

I got some pickled eggs from that pharmacy and they were some of the best I've had

I visited this place twice (abandoned places are cool). It was really spooky how you could tell people just had to gtfo as fast as possible when they would leave their furniture in the road. In areas where it had slightly flooded, the bottoms of the trees were white and we'd come across random dead animals just laying in the road. I assumed it was too much consumption of the lead filled water. The town also had more churches than anything I'd seen before. Like every corner was a church. The high school was the newest looking building but we didn't get to explore it because it was completely fenced in and marshals were stationed right next to the school. Which sucked because I would've explored the shit out of that place. The thing that has always bothered me was the amount of farm land located at the border of the town. All that lead filled water has to go somewhere when it rains. A friend of mine went to the collage in Miami oklahoma and said that the parade in Picher was a bigger turnout than the one in the city. He played in the college band so he was apart of the parade.

The Picher story shows us that nothing is free. There was a price to pay for the wealth generated by the mines.

just makes me think of the band Chat Pile

Not to be the “erm actually” guy but I live not far from there and Miami is pronounced like “My-am-uh” not like the famous city. Whenever someone talks about for the first time or are new to the area they ALWAYS make that mistake.

The joke writing was extra on point for this one. Great job Amy.

Amy is the GOAT.

Chat Pile is also a great band.

Interesting fact, in English mining communities, the waste rock isn’t called chat, it’s called slag. Yup. Slag

While Picher may have it the worst, many towns in that tristate area have problems with lead poisoning. During my University days, I worked at a lab that was working on the problem. We were working on trying to restore vegetation so that roots and plants would prevent the chat and lead dust from spreading or being inhaled.

Press F for Gary

2nd most toxic kind of chat

“That’s bigger than Naru!” Now that is some niche foreshadowing 😂

REALLY didn't expect this video, I live just 10 minutes away! People from the area used to ride their ATVs and dirtbikes on the chat piles

I suggested this idea to HAI like 2 years ago via the submission thing, where's my t-shirt :')

Amy didn't visit the uninhabitable city of Picher, Oklahoma so I'm not sure how to full about the legitimacy of this video.. Without Amy covering the news on ground I feel like all this information could be fake...

Picher Oklahoma is where my grandma was born. Kinda crazy to hear the name again. Also, Miami Oklahoma is pronounced like my-am-uh.

did u know btw cadium is actually slightly radioactive. so not only were they getting lead poisoning but they were also getting smashed by radiation (and not the good kind)

The background music is overpowering Sam’s audio.

It's pronounced miamuh, not miami.

I have driven through Picher so many times because I live in SE Kansas, and it is really freaky. I wanted to stop at that gorilla statue (yes, it exists) but then I did some research into how polluted the soil is and thought better of it. While ingestion is the primary lead exposure pathway for kids, inhalation from dust is the primary exposure pathway for adults.

7:05 They must have changed their minds again because I literally hauled almost 15 dump truck loads of sand out of Picher just a couple weeks ago to be mixed into asphalt. He's not exaggerating in the least about how much is there, it's insane how much there is it's literally EVERYWHERE and the piles are massive, like, they make the equipment they load us with look like Tonka toys in a sandbox