HISTORY OF THE PICHER MINING FIELD

The Picher Mining Field is located in southeastern Cherokee County, Kansas and northeastern Ottawa County, Oklahoma. Approximately 45 sections in T28N-29N, R22E-R24E, contain mine workings in the Oklahoma portion of the field. Up to 30 percent of the mining field in Oklahoma was located on restricted Indian lands requiring lease arrangements managed by the U. S. Department of the Interior (DOI). DOI lease restrictions required more mine shafts and mills to be constructed than was necessary to remove and mill the ore. During the mining period 1891-1970 U. S. Bureau of Mines records show that 181,048,872 tons of crude ore were removed from the mines producing 8,879,818 tons of zinc and 1,679,222 tons of lead concentrates. The remaining 170,500,000 tons consisting of mine and mill tailings were spread over approximately 7,000 acres.

Mining practiced in the Picher Mining Field is commonly referred to as random room-and-pillar mining where rooms were excavated and pillars were left to support the mine roof. Approximately 1,200 vertical mine shafts between 90 and 350 feet were sunk to intercept the main ore horizons. Milling depended primarily on specific gravity methods, including jigs and tables. In the 1920s the flotation process became the primary means for extracting concentrates from the finely ground ore remaining from the initial milling process and remilling tailings. By the late 1920s, 227 mills were operating in the mining field. By the late1930s most of the higher grade ore had been mined and most tailings piles remilled. Several central mills were built to replace the smaller, less efficient mills in order to extend the life of the field.

The amount of ore mined annually continued to decrease in the 1950s and 60s until 1970 when all mining ceased and all pumps were removed from the mines. The abandoned mine workings continued to fill with water until 1979 when the entire underground workings in the field were flooded.