Douthat is a
ghost town
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
in
Ottawa County,
Oklahoma
Oklahoma (; Choctaw language, Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the nor ...
, United States. Douthat is south of
Picher. Douthat once had a
post office
A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...
, which opened on March 17, 1917. The community was named after Zahn A. Douthat, the owner of the townsite. Douthat is now abandoned and part of the
Tar Creek Superfund site
Tar Creek Superfund site is a United States Superfund site, declared in 1983, located in the cities of Picher and Cardin, Ottawa County, in northeastern Oklahoma. From 1900 to the 1960s lead mining and zinc mining companies left behind huge open ...
.
Douthat constituted the west part of a larger mining camp known as Century, Oklahoma. A newspaper, The Independent, also called the Douthat Independent, referred to the town in its first issue published July 5, 1917 as “Douthat (Century),” and indicated the place was the “center of the Quapaw Miami mining district—the greatest lead and zinc mining country in the world excepting none.”. The paper used both names going forward, stating in an advertisement in the second edition that the business in question was opposite the O.K.& M. train station in Douthat, but editorializing in the third edition that in regard to needed but uninstalled railroad crossings, “Century is full of promises from the O. K. & M. You see they have not put in road crossings.”
As referenced, the Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri Inter-Urban Railway Company (O.K.& M.) had built into Douthat/Century from
Commerce
Commerce is the large-scale organized system of activities, functions, procedures and institutions directly and indirectly related to the exchange (buying and selling) of goods and services among two or more parties within local, regional, nation ...
in 1916.
That line later became part of the
Northeast Oklahoma Railroad in 1919.
[ The line was absorbed into the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway (Frisco) in 1967, but was subsequently abandoned.][
]
References
Geography of Ottawa County, Oklahoma
Ghost towns in Oklahoma
Environmental disaster ghost towns
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