Miami (Oklahoma)

Miami is a city of 13,000 people (2020) in the Green Country region of Oklahoma on old US Route 66.

Understand
The town is named for the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma (the traditional name Myaamia, plural Myaamiaki, comes from an older native term meaning 'downstream people'). In a typical Oklahoman fashion, "Miami" is pronounced mia-muh by the locals. Miami is the capital of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, Modoc Tribe of Oklahoma, Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma, Peoria Tribe of Indians, Seneca-Cayuga Tribe, and Shawnee Tribe; there are various native-owned businesses, including casinos, in the area.

Get in
By car, Miami may be reached by old US 66, US Route 69 or Interstate 44.

Sleep




Picher
Founded 1913 after lead and zinc deposits were discovered on leased Quapaw land, Pitcher was once a city of 15,000 (on US 69, bordering Treece, Kansas) which produced lead for bullets for two world wars. Mining ended in 1957; the population declined 80–90% in the following decade. 14,000 abandoned mine shafts, 70 million tons of mine tailings, and 36 million tons of mill sand and sludge were left behind, undermining 85% of the city's buildings and contaminating all of the surface and groundwater supplies with lead. A 2006 state-sponsored buyout and permanent evacuation were already well underway when, on May 10, 2008, an EF4 tornado killed eight people and cut a mile-wide swath through town. The tornado-damaged structures were never rebuilt.

The 1,000 maps, 500 photos and various artifacts from the Picher Mining Field Museum were moved to the Baxter Springs Historical Society Museum in 2008. The city hall was closed and its archives turned over to the Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in Miami in 2010. Most buildings were torn down in 2011. The town disincorporated and disappeared from maps in 2013. In 2014, six residents remained. An arsonist burned the empty, abandoned mining museum to the ground on April 14, 2015.

While most buildings were demolished, a few still stand, mostly as ruins. An abandoned Catholic church, a ruined pool hall, an auction house, a building where mining equipment was sold and a small collection of homes are all slowly deteriorating.