[CPEO-BIF] Treece, Kansas and Picher, Oklahoma

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Treece Journal
Welcome to Our Town. Wish We Weren't Here.

By SUSAN SAULNY
New York Times
September 14, 2009

TREECE, Kan. - Mayor Bill Blunk sees no reason for sugar-coating his 
opinion when asked to describe this town.

"It's dead," he said. "Wasted land."

Almost anywhere else on the map, such bluntness could cost a politician 
re-election. But not here. Mr. Blunk has the near-unanimous support of 
the population, 140 people or so, who are perhaps singular among 
residents of municipalities in that they all want out of theirs.

"I'd be happy to go as anyone," said Randall Barr, a retired sand 
company worker. "You can't do anything with this land. What good is it?"

For most of the early part of the 20th century, this little city in the 
southeast corner of Kansas had the feel of a rollicking boom town, its 
prosperity coming from land rich in lead, zinc and iron ore. Part of a 
vast mining district where Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma meet, Treece 
and its twin city across the Oklahoma state line, Picher, became the 
unofficial capitals of a zone that in its heyday produced more than $20 
billion worth of ore — much of it used for weaponry to fight World Wars 
I and II.

....

For the entire article, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/us/14kansas.html?th&emc=th

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org




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