State atlas · filed under OK
Ghost Towns of Oklahoma
Oklahoma's ghosts came fast: land-run townsites that lost the county seat, oil-boom cities that moved with the play, Dust Bowl farm towns, and the lead-zinc towns of the Tri-State district — Picher among them, evacuated over its own mine waste.
148 sites surveyed across Oklahoma — 3 charted with full records so far, entered by year of settlement. The rest are awaiting verification.
Survey note
The federal place-name archive records 148 vanished or historical sites in Oklahoma — ghost towns, mining camps, townsites, and railroad stops. We chart them a few at a time, as the records can be verified. Every mark on this map is a place that once had a name.
Society Pro
See Oklahoma as the surveyors drew it, 1879 to 1919
299 USGS survey sheets from those years cover Oklahoma. Pro lays them over today's map with a swipe between then and now, and adds every mine feature, lost place and mineral site the federal record holds for the state.
The full survey ledger
Every vanished town the federal archive records in Oklahoma — each with its own record page, verified and expanded over time.