Treece, Kansas: Ghost Town in the Making

it's been called one of the most environmentally devastated places in the united states i'm kate mcintyre and today on cape er present trees a ghost town in the making thirty years ago the small town of trees in southeastern kansas was designated as a superfund site by the environmental protection agency reading dangerously high levels of lead from the mining industry that was the economic foundation of southeast kansas for much of the twentieth century in two thousand ninth congress approved a buyout of the small town which spurred the exodus of almost all of its residents but amidst the headlines and buyouts there's the story of a community coming to grips with the loss of the only hometown they've ever known tree is a ghost town in the making was produced by nina port city here it's my hair in carlstadt whether recollected a multimedia collaboration that produces documentaries for the web and radio this program was funded by a generous grant from the kansas

humanities council at any it's about twelve miles from here bill blount is the last american troops and they were barreling down highway sixty nine ports to use mail in minus truck is whitey i'm a co producer taylor falling in nine years first nobel and two thousand nine i called him after reading an article about town the article painted a pretty bleak picture of the place and mine shafts piles of contaminated mining waste the stars the near century worth of weapons and mining

there was one line at the end of the story that captured my attention here is a man who doesn't want to see the substance of the trees were in the middle of lobbying for the environmental protection agency to buy their homes to that the hundred or so residents can get out and it puzzled me that in a town so polluted that even the townspeople wanted to walk away bell mowed lawn still he cared and walking away it might not be as easy as article was making it out to be i added multiple crews indicted me of the fantasy that line it's hard to sing at a bell his wife judy will tell you as much he convinced her to marry him after just two weeks another was just something and banging his brown eyes his cute little smile it as snarky smile and i have her get a lot of

here and it is just to admit on the greyhound bus you know he is in the very back on hours once we raise two beautiful voice since then shortly after my visit the town by what it asked for three point five million dollars allocated by the federal government for resettlement by july twenty twelve when taylor night to describe are going to be back to trees the town is gone no buildings left that's right it's b renee montagne host

honestly there's a part of the area of kansas that they called the little balkans because of all the mining at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries my name is the gate would not from columbus kansas on the first district kansas state representative at the turn of the twentieth century dads district was one of the largest producers of lead and zinc in the world mining was so important to this area that to this day people still state claimed having mine the lead for the bullets the one the two world wars as lead has also been used for paint batteries gasoline toilets we had coal mining in the north part of my district we had lead and zinc mining and the southeastern portion of the district so we have mining where you live she's at the center of the largest most productive land mine field in the

area a pitcher fields where most of the mining died after the nineteen fifties picture field continue to be mined into the seventies kansas you typically think of as being flat plains however my part of the district is the only part of kansas as small hills and course lot of hills or your city or natural are the result of a mining engineer mind have the largest elements four hundred and forty feet except these hills are killed at all their merits of wisconsin at that painting he has occasionally been expected i've always heard stories of the good pitcher jeff pyle was so big it went into the clouds when the low clouds a stop would come and it would cover the top of the my name is jeremy johnston i was born in columbus kansas but lived here entries pretty much my entire life the chatter at that you were from treece or

pitcher coroner hocker will are calmer if somebody called you to check that people who were you were four just to the southwest part of a jet car that still stands that that was actually called the captain that was one across the law section we call it the red check out that everybody from from like other places call it a yellow mountain so why then there was the peak or the finger because it was part of a jet pilot had hardened over time and when they dug it out there's a part of it that stuck out look like a finger pointing into the sky and it's a chap asked what the back of my hand it was just part of living in people with possible size of roads just what she bikes will condemn the chapeau try to see who could make the top mary bell blank would take a car windshields of car hoods and then just going on in sail away there's no stoppin the race that a nice

cider mishap like twenty miles an hour coming is awesome and to do that on the snow was even better because i mean as a kid my own band and the airport you know that ice you'd take into and sister said you'd signed almost twelve we've come to a stop it's been you know it's been the party every week to live tv was reporting from five to five jim and three the family of i feared faith burden british olive rectified be an animal house brandon really bad with envy and none of the european great to come up to picture in four women live right on the corner i decided to build a yard that was be like paradise my name is janice leatherman

and i live in treece forty two years pretty flowers it isn't his friends and they brought the cedar trees we planted on the north side and see every month a plan so that every monthly yard to be filled with something and there were roses and the ladies viruses everywhere daffodils and the little nurses nurses says flowers beautiful hybrid irises japanese irises and just so places you know paradise cases so quiet i would get desperately lonely sometimes people look at events to commerce like they felt sorry for you he felt ashamed to say that they felt ashamed to same from then it wants

this is roy liu is running out this week

is ben wins the chaplain to fly it was just everywhere my name is pam credit either dip to forty five washington street in treece kansas city water or for lawyers or selling any i never realized what those chaps house were really until i got to dig into it or just fall of the land and i'm probably not educated maybe not smart i don't know but i guess in my mind that the bulk of his advantage when the year the area was declared a superfund site by the environmental protection agency and ninety three superfund sites are large areas contaminated with hazardous waste material the land around trees has been ranked one of the most environmentally devastated places in the country most of the mining companies responsible for the mass a long gone out of business or administer pay only a tiny fraction of the cleanup costs leaving the federal government to step

back since the area was declared superfund site the epa has been working to clean up the contamination but there's too much and it is too toxic high concentrations of lead zinc and cadmium for mine waste were found in the groundwater and creeks near trees traces of lead were found in yards and playgrounds in the chat piles and in the dust in people's homes that exposure even in the smallest amounts can cause all kinds of health issues is especially dangerous for kids who can end up with permanent learning disabilities tara creek was an active auction house part of it in answering the north through trees and people used to go down and take their kids and sway minute before anyone then that it was just a whole creek you know with chatham house go around and so we did that my kids get ear infections immediately so it never let him go than

ever it wasn't until two thousand and nineteen eighties residents protested for lead and results were surprising lead levels among young children or three times higher than the national average epa came in and tested not just the children but adults do they have a criteria their woods overcame it becomes really bad and we think there may rest of a how much is too much when the nurses said to me no level of lead in the blood is acceptable so my children grew up with in their lead never be gassed become experts and talk to doctors and scientists who study the area they all agree on one point the landscape is toxic still they all say there haven't been enough studies to prove exactly what the consequences of the mining hasn't been on people's health and says people have left the area it's probably too late to ever now even people who grew up there wonder how the pollution might have affected them hard conditions lung cancer kidney disease i don't mean disorders learning disabilities the list goes on there's people that realize what

lead does and they're ready to go and then there's the ones that are like we've lived here our whole life or still break then this is stupid have lived your entire life in again she's resident jerry johnston i dont have any defects that i know of but i'm only thirty nine years old mama you know it may change when i'm fifty sixty there may be somebody that comes because they don't worry about it if it ever happens this is how this is all i've ever known as home and i am perfectly content be here if i wouldn't i wouldn't be here now your shoes now so this next top twelve

feet down every regular billing swing state representative that gate when the side job is knowing this enormous field full of singles the more catastrophic cave ins that we've seen happen as far back as nineteen sixties the mining companies would come in and they just get worn and in one instance the there's only thirty four feet of overburdened that's a ceiling that's left an actual hall is approximately two hundred feet when you get down to that treece pitcher commerce area that's where the deeper mines were and that's where the really catastrophic ok vince berlin every twelve the year two hundred and twenty feet and coffee you'll survive you might have a tough time good now

but you want the bigger drops and it's big enough to in the case of theresa could literally soar the whole city i mean two hundred feet is like just put that into perspective it means a twenty story building right and that high quality underneath highway sixty nine the sixty nine highway that runs just south of the tamm is where the largest mine was and rumor has it you could fit the astrodome in the hole and you're driving over that whole when you know i'm sixty nine i think that it's my time it's my time this area here and the fifth you can pretty much tell if you're from the area you know if you see pastors all across there and you see one section like that that progress is this a tall isn't yet as well as you know a lot of

fun in them or people and in life living life on the edge with a porn and be an order that day when he was out here it's more dangerous every day it's not a question of if we're going to have a cave in its question we're so we know that is contaminated we know that there's a hole underneath that we know that the city is losing services so what more do we have to do to justify that the besieged towns i asked for a town meeting and i passed around a notebook so write your name your address and then below what year for her or against a buyout and seventy nine people that were attending the meeting seventy six of them said that they supported the buyout some real reluctance but they support of the concept because you're gonna and i just continued to live because we couldn't get out and she

had you know a lot of money around you now just a bigger house and move you couldn't borrow money cause it was condemned land and if that person had cash to pay if your ass is okay but most people didn't and we needed enough to begin another house to live in and once they heard it was to trace where they thought they could get it for five hundred dollars or a couple of thousand dollars you know but that's not possible the town rallied together to plead their case that was an idea that sounded it sees several years to get the attention of the state and federal government finally a buyout came through three point five million dollars was allocated to the town and addressed a group of people appointed by the kansas governor was set up to manage it first at an appraising people's property value we all think that accompanies was a lot more than a surprise for my outsider an event that phrase or it comes from a very good and nice

beautiful home and looked at the house and trees even mind they want to make a living and i thought my house wasn't that bad it's all in the picture than the wall that one was really high really high one was really low and one was an initial survey and reached a man and then they gave his twenty percent more the average diesel for a home in treece was less than twenty thousand dollars the residents took the money and that and tried to find a new home and a new town meeting behind an empty houses once everyone as god trust hired auctioneer colonel jerry tess that mimi mimi me to sell off the empty houses you had people that were buying you know to move or move on their wallets are you had people bargain for salvage it was a nice day was a really warm day and people would get early they could go around and going to the homes and check him out and then they got them from the stresses at

an atm in it and an italian and i didn't i didn't invent and on and on and on another young to really exerted on washington street here in treason i had a double wide house had been empty for probably a couple months before they often get it was a weird feeling because the first thing you're thinkin that nobody buys that and then some embarrassing it's like oh this is like or sell houses or so by ed that basically you know someone bring a dollar apiece and that people bought a lot of water the door noble former simon liz literalist i could not stand a lot of somebody walking through my home looking at it i felt like i was just wide open forever by the kenyan and unlike and judge my home i'm not so private day yet in my whole lot of ice but it killed me to finally turn over the key for that reason but anyway it and that that was that was a hard thing for me that day to wonder what people thought of my home

yes that's probably i don't know you know sales took about an hour please rule is a vessel at two large are nearby by biden as a dozen eggs a lot about it now they're not an ironic about it this is we are this nation this is our country the city of treece kansas established in the year nineteen eighteen was dissolved in

april of twenty twelve as i drive there are trace it's just like you're driving him to her twilight zone episode american and a one point the report on the houses were still there and you drive for later in the houses are gone the streets are solar and now a drive thru in the street or don't it's just devil worship there's a surreal feeling he removed in january i continue going back to this city to do my jobs until it closed in august so every man that i went back more and more women than i remember that that has set up there and i thought that people move all the time and it's not harm why is this so hard and i realized

because i have been able to tangibly clicked and put your hand on something inside my mother lived there and you know we walked down that street in and then i got to sign this town's going to be gone one day one day i'm going to you know it's just i had a place where i we measure the kids as they grew in with all the wall in the hallway when they were little to smarten and all three kids as a crew and i we yes i cut that out but i didn't know i was never so glad as when that day came that i didn't have to go back any more and then i didn't have to deal with that those emotions you will not see you when you know where it was and this town has sent in entries in waves and express a few flowers there's nothing there to say who had to wear or i think this was here or maybe it was gardening it

made us what might happen and a grammy it for three eighth of a mile of the world wrote and three it's a mildly you know it's almost a white pick their weapons most everyone left town but jerry johnson didn't take the buyout he has stayed in his house on the outskirts of trees he was with his girlfriend daughter next order was parents who also decided to stay i can basically hunt and fish and do whatever i want any direction from the front where the republican filthy stinking rich and despair when i first campaigned i would want nor did your first time i walked through trace cried myself just the thoughts same again sell plan another they didn't have the ability to escape her environment

they deserve better i don't feel good about that i just feel like we did what was necessary was right not what was good but ever known mcgee and something pops up to worry and you have to wonder you went and somebody's watching us and we see you say yes yes yes yeah yes it's been over a year since going to be moved out of trees are my problems are extraordinary adjusting their double wide trailer home for not liking trees to a new track of land twelve miles away at the end of their driveway in trees still bear leading to a patch of dirt where the house once stood i gauge

and feral and i only say walk a bubble the police chief and i don't really both about one thousand that i have here is that nature where he didn't say that to happen it's just too much of a change for me is trying everything he can to make it happy and respecting for that and do we have a garden now but it's consistent saying his life that plan has turned into a massive means and wildflowers the new gardens dake who won twice a large and also been no

trees the trees they left behind arlette why i'm great big entry that i planted as a little route and now i keep moving and he was gonna leave twenty rose this chance to know which are not and i had to get there with the shovel there are common with samantha nineteen and it to me you probably you would probably see a still see are now guarding the rear back there if it if i have a show i share the show with a top actually she was my baby you know she would share their grief with a match and that's when i knew to pinpoint when she started i live back there in a heartbeat because it's well money

ok as a good and i one way the other new going to see jesus sooner or later and they would do anything about it or why rush it well as long as you don't take your own life you know you still can see jesus said no no no no nine nine millimeters my question is as pasture apply and when they do that their lives to graze cattle whatever which you can't live on oh wait a minute i have a problem with that is not good

enough as to live on but its grazing land for an animal and when you're gonna slide back our pa here in a heated and that's going to write in your system that i no sense to me this three minute video on my god if you don't feel it very clear that a fifth of the state's with a sprinkling of duty starts to walk through a patch of tallgrass the beast for old country i think it's part of the airplane and i wanted it and they're going to screen one dynamic and stares down at the beads intrigue never know starts to forage for saddling to take it

yet a third family which one ms bee has been a peak dylan i followed dylan cd back to the added turmeric part cd clutching her new home sampling center on a car's <unk> know and when did you first drive away by the trap he followed that job was closed and i wouldn't wear them and it's not actually an

ad let's be this land is your land and this land of milan in california and the argyle land borders green waters of land was made for you in the violent a lot and a ribbon of highway i saw leave them in that is that way only event golden valley you've been listening to trees a ghost town in the making it was produced by nina pours the key sheila harris meyer in

carlsbad for the recollect in a multimedia collaboration that produces documentaries for the web and radio this program was funded by a generous grant from the kansas humanities council i'm j mcintyre you're listening to k pr presents on kansas public radio back in two thousand seven kbr is bryan thompson traveled to trees at the time congress had not yet approved the buyout of trees and more than one hundred people still live there his are poor with a richly broadcast on kansas public radio on october eighth two thousand seven sure the county used to hold some of the richest lead and zinc deposits in america mining was a major pillar of the economy here for nearly a hundred years until the mines played out in the nineteen seventies reggae bar lives right across the road from several large piles of small jacket stones this chat is all that's left

after rocks from deep beneath the ground were mill pulverized to extract the lead and saying course about all to happen and going to disappoint went wrong in the lead and left to do and there's a girl in the boulders that come out of the ground and that she's waged that chad is that's it's all been wheeled out maybe the lead and zinc sound well you know other than water les guste you're really good but a little bit of leg can do a lot of damage especially to a developing brain that's why young children including the unborn are most at risk from land studies have shown that letter child bloodstream lowers their child's iq with the prevailing wind carrying dust from one of the chat miles right at bars house he can't help but worry about the effects it might be having on his family and that they get through i found redd spent well when i think about

in summer you know human spying intellectually dr oberlander you don't have the epa did test for lead in bars yard but barr questions the results don't let a new york court and ap either i take him out and objected to redound even one doro get check their ruined the lead the jeopardy it almost seems to defy logic but dave drake the epa is project manager for the cherokee county superfund site says breathing the dust from the chat miles is a non issue that in the past we have actually strapped for small error monitoring device in particular workers at the down to the areas where they are garcetti all about all the airport worker you than working at the material and rebuilt although you know that there really is no help prevent that nonetheless drake says the epa is concerned about the chat piles

pile are mr ratte barbara tye well puerto ricans have iraq are now drake says the biggest concern with the dust is that small children by nature put their hands and everything else and their mouths they can ingest toxic levels of lead that way whether the dust comes from the mine waste or from deteriorating lead based paint in their homes since the mid nineteen nineties there's been an extensive effort in cherokee county to educate parents how to protect their kids from lead exposure that elliot heads the cherokee county health department hammerstein hammerstein hammerstein so your kids go out and play outside we're still here is no forgiveness here and you know maybe don't give him a sandwich when they're played in the same latino community more syrians thing to do the same so you know in addition to the public education campaign the county has stopped covering gravel roads with chat from the minds of people been warned not to use mine waste for landscaping driveway

phil and playground say and all of which were common in the past these efforts have paid off studies show the number of children with elevated blood lead levels in cherokee county has dropped by forty three percent of course lead poisoning isn't the only danger posed by the abandoned mines ready bar and his neighbors in the tiny town of trees population one hundred forty four can never be sure that the ground beneath them won't give way as the mine shafts that underlie most of the area cave in overtime barr says there are at least seventy open mine shafts and cave ins just on the one mile section of land behind his house steele got to be most in southeast kansas is covered with rich farmland not hear this landscape looks more like the surface of the moon

hardly any vegetation grows in the acre after acre of mine waste finally bar stopped the truck near the ruins of an old mill the pen we reached the top of the hill and come to a few scrubby trees for the fact that if their feet against the sloth sharply downward fall or you or go just a few feet ahead of us is a whole that drops straight down maybe fifty to a hundred feet to the water table below this without leaving an open open share an additional felony around that say for reading it from the facade for plus patio or will he be held a graph that's a very real concern barr says lots of people come out here to ride all terrain vehicles anyone unfamiliar with the lay of the land could easily fall

into a shaft like this and might never be found not far from here is a place where a large horizontal mine shaft caveat it's filled with water that's an unnatural shade of blue green a rope swaying is tied to a tree limb high above the water bar says young people from all over the area come here to swim water is surely contaminated but there also could be other dangers below the surface frozen aware of the road are thinking about ninety four year low value of fish when they can you are here in israel farr says the swimmers easily get lost and drowned in an underwater thomas this is one hazard that may soon be a limit at the epa plans to fill this pitch and all the others like it with mine waste from the chaff piles then it'll be covered with a layer of clay and another layer of topsoil and vegetation the chat that

won't fit into the holes will also be covered but barr doesn't think this area will ever be truly safe he and most of his neighbors which the federal government would buy them out so they could move to new homes state representative doug gatewood from nearby columbus says that's the responsible thing to do it would be a lot safer to clean it up with people remove from the errant wicked wicked their clean it up and then and possibly maker wants a remedial work is done we could make a wildlife refuge out of that or any number of things that could be done with land the legislature has set aside nearly seven hundred thousand dollars as a state match for a federal buyout gatewood says the latest estimate of the cost to relocate everyone in the trees area is about eight billion dollars a buyout was recently approved for the adjacent town of picher oklahoma state which says it's only fair to do the same for treats their community of interest that people in a church they work in picher it's just across the road they have a mutual aid agreement with fire and

police departments what the earth its fate of trees should be the same as the city of picher candice congresswoman nancy boyd and senator pat roberts are currently working to secure funding for a buyout randy bar is optimistic that a buyout will eventually be approved that is he won't hesitate to sell the game and welcome home to where you never knew how big on the mark for the kansas public radio network i'm bryan thompson again that piece by kbr is bryan thompson was originally broadcast on october eighth two thousand seven prior to the trees by out an abandonment in connection with the radio documentary treats ghost town in the making the cancer historical society currently has a small exhibit on display called formerly known as trees earlier this week i traveled to topeka to visit the exhibit and talk to donna ray pearson

collections development specialist they said the country's actually started years ago he came about two thousand five i received a grant and the museum received a grant from i know i saw that as too instituted news im in my peers services to actually kelly can help other institutions collect artifacts in things for the collection to build up the collection is called proactive collecting so i probably by accident or or good fortune i'm not quite sure which one i received information about trees and what was going on down there so i made a couple of trips down there to try to actually get things for the collection and so we could document they're what was going on down there as it was happening which is notably different west then what you think about news im steve think a museum this is hopefully waiting for something to come along

that we've been trying to take a more proactive approach as things and events occur we try to go and try to be on the scene as much as possible and elise start the process and get our name out there is we're interested in the thing that because it's historically significant well unlike probably a lot of history teacher documenting it was really obvious that what was happening in treece was history in the making correct i can't think of another single and stamps worth the factors came together in such a way that you knew that certainly didn't know at that time that something down the line serious is going to happen and by the time yeltsin say been actively working for a buyout for so long wiley from athens citizens had been an there was going to be a conclusion to this and just to be able to be there on the scene as things were happening was you know very beneficial for us so elise for the foot or at least for that project and when that tragic

closed and then there are other people interested in the project and that's how that documentary came about and there's also photographers that have documented the town of trees so i think unlike other incidents that happen this one has been so well documented which is a little bit unusual so there's kind of two sides of a history to this the efforts are actually keep track of what was going on and how it's happening and who was happening too as well as the event itself being very historically significant the closing the closing down of the time it's a different perspective of history meaning that history we we tend to think of it as something that happens in the past and we kind of forget sometimes that the past is yesterday also felt even though it might not how the conventional guidelines of waiting fifty years but we really can't wait for fifty years anymore in order to get it their

perspective to understand how the people are feeling as it was going on makes history a little more human it makes it you can relate to it a little bit better if you has some of the voices and some of the things that they the actual criticisms of the events you know having carried around and used to you know and our everyday lives well in the story hasn't really human perspective there's no wage to tell the story without telling the story of these people who have lost their hometown exactly i mean this is really even though there's the environmental aspect of it how does the area get so bad or you have to clear it everybody out again this really happened to the people that lived in the tampa and much of people it's hard to understand the fact that these people have told you cannot go home we haven't wiped you off of the map and you cannot go home again where you know we go back for christmas or

thanksgiving or your childhood memories i mean it's gone and that alone i think it's worth talking about how did how do the events transpired to the point where you can't go home again how did the people of trees react to your coming in and saying you were interested in having materials about trees for a historical archive mixed results i mean there are mixed feelings you know and i i readily acknowledge that image did catch him cutting get as many things as i was looking for it and the reason is is because you do have to be sensitive to the fact that this is happening to them at this point in time and they might not be ready to fully accept understand what's going on to them but there are other people who are very helpful to us and open the door

and let us command and i think hopefully i hopefully was able to start the conversation for the other people who came in an they see the evidence that there are the results of their work you know then again the documentary that people be listening tonight when people come to see this mullet seven entrees what do you hope that they will take away from they make a connection with the people and this in this in this particular situation again there's all across the world their appeal being told you may not stay here anymore you have to leave you have to go somewhere else and start over again i want people to understand the background of how that happened and treece kansas and why it happened and treece kansas and think about again is there any way today we can prevent that happening for much in other parts of the state i looked it up and i believe there's eighteen counties that superfund site in kansas nobody knows that you don't realize that your backyard you'd be a

superfund site it but there's also other situations and times you have one of those situations she happily whether it be because of our environmental reasons because of political reasons because of business reason the thing that i like about the true story is that they decided to actively practice to pay him how they were going to leave the tam they you know they couldn't people are just packed up and left i think they were also making a statement about what happened to them and how it happened to them and i think that's a story that people need to know and understand so it's not the main part of their kansas history museum tell me when where can we find this exhibit on a side where their archives is the center for historical research instead of going into the museum doors just go up the walkway little bit more and really it on your left inside when we come through the

doors can't what's critical look at how they were walking into the room and donna ray what are we hearing here that documentary that they heard earlier protests and it will be entered in a continuous loop here in this room that say so what we got here weller opening images is the minors at the likely to mine in cherokee county in nineteen forty three and this where's one of the larger minds and i'm just fascinated by this photo because they looked happy and i keep thinking that there were conditions that they live in so this year this this image our strikes me that i wanted to help them with that because these again really people doing a job that dates back to nineteen forty three i have a running debate one

other person that signing her one of the prestigious photo is a sign that says we use safety here yes they they say fifty cents the mining industry started in kansas it promises around the early nineteen hundreds or so it became mining safety really became an issue and it evolved over time what we think that now i think conditions i mean when you look at this artifact over here you realize that you know the mining lamp they were actually putting they were actually creating a flammable fluid and lighting it putting an americana and then going down two hundred feet or so and i just like it's not safe enough so that other little mining that can see all of the burn charcoal on and that's again because you put a liquid food in there and the idea that included on your helmet

so yeah exactly you know and there was an issue with you know being safety for just a little bit of time there is actually i'm a mining university in kansas has located in pittsburgh in atlanta kellogg's famine believe it lasted for like two or three years and then burned them and they didn't need a thorough and there was just all kinds of different coursework in there but safety was private and for over over the years there really you were different issues relating to safety and how to keep the miners safe and yell ventilation and then the cave ins even that we worry about in contemporary trees were happening can also there's very little ventilation when you're two hundred feet down so and you know the heat exhaustion a plus now though the fumes can build up in that

area also and that might say if i really want to do that that you probably would look is happy isn't a gentleman i rap is that sentimental i don't think you need this is another one of my favorite elements is this is a picture of a minor in a very enclosed area with his peck in his flammable helmet on and he's in this very small enclosed space picking trying to get at the rock that he needs he basically looks like easel wedged into this cave and it's somehow trying to get the leverage to take a pickaxe back and get this so this could have been you know five eighteen hours a day and conditions like this to understand you know they literally you know people in this position to help millions of tons of rock this way it's an amazing and just to be clear about what kind of rock they were

taking out you've got a c on as part of the exhibit we've got a little bit of the magic of those mines way it was also a big business in several different ways i mean they they promoted this mining industry and people within the state and outside of the state as economic opportunity for the falafel this little card of three rocks that lead think in handcuffs him on it were given away as people took tours of underground areas liasson commercial debt if they'll get shipped indication how everybody was involved in some way so you might not have necessarily been a miner that you were some part of that industry if you're in that area so that you know it was not just isolated to the miners and their families you might've been working and they business that's a practice that

supplied the lumber enough to the mind you've had i have worked in the school district with different challenges there and hard time there were hershey's dollars and different avenues says i am for shopping so it wasn't just singular it didn't just happen to the mining miners and their families this is a community wide pain he was a company town company really dominated the local economy and lots and lots of ways that one that i think we get to that i mean this was their likelihood is you're going to be associated with it and this is another one of the images that i like as a minor and i don't know if he's giving his first paycheck where let that they believe he was getting his paycheck and sets up in a very proud moment to actually you know put a profit but they act they had bought a lightly hit them here and there's probably more

money by the forties and fifties the new could never realize and so really were supported by the mining industry in a few select companies that you know complete that promoted the story that i tell people normally when i first went to chase the first time it was a it was a rainy day on storming and when i write into town they told me oh you can have a good day because the dust will be down so you don't have to worry about that that's getting in your lungs and then and then mexicans was but we do have to worry that if it keeps raining we get i think also you know make sure you stay with me and that is that was donna ray pearce fan of the kansas historical society she curated a small exhibit called formerly known as trees which

four remain on display in til june thirtieth the historical society is located on the grounds of the kansas museum of history sixty four twenty five southwest sixth avenue in topeka for more information visit their website hey as it as dot org slash a team trio one again that's k s h as dot org slash a team of three zero one the radio documentary trees ghost town in the making was produced by the rock collective funded by a generous grant from the kansas humanities council to find out more about the recollected and their efforts to document the loss of the town of trees visit their website the recollected of dot net there you can also see photographs of many of the town's residents and the town itself you can also find a blog about the tree's project and information about other rap collective preference while you're online you might also want to visit treece kansas

dot com which includes oral histories and photographs and a link to the treece kansas based group again that's treece kansas all one word dot com i'm kate mcintyre kbr presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas next time on kbr presents general martin dempsey chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the president's top military advisor join us at a club next sunday evening for this kansas state university landon lecture as the nation's highest ranking military advisor talks about rock n roll poetry and america special relationship with our veterans it this isn't about forming an image of the veteran for us this is about forming an image of the veteran former at our present general martin dempsey in a club next sunday evening on kansas

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