Acme is a
ghost town
A ghost town, deserted city, extinct town, or abandoned city is an abandoned settlement, usually one that contains substantial visible remaining buildings and infrastructure such as roads. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economi ...
in
Grady County,
Oklahoma
Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
, United States.
It had a post office from April 8, 1913, to May 29, 1931.
The former community was west of the present community of
Rush Springs.
["Grady County, Oklahoma: Towns and Townships." Genealogy Trails.](_blank)
Accessed August 10, 2016.
History
The town of Acme developed when the Acme Cement and Plaster Company built a mill and power plant in the area in 1911.
Gypsum
Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...
was mined from the area. The
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad
The original Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad (CRI&P RW, sometimes called ''Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway'') was an American Class I railroad. It was also known as the Rock Island Line, or, in its final years, The Rock.
At ...
built a spur to serve the plant.
At its peak production, the plant employed 100 to 125 workers to produce six to eight railcar loads of product every day. When the nearby gypsum beds were exhausted, the company built a narrow-gauge railroad between the Acme plant and some other beds near the Little Washita River. A flood covered these additional beds with several feet of sand in 1927. Work continued on these beds, but this proved unprofitable. After 1930, the entire venture became unprofitable and the company closed everything. The railroad was abandoned in 1930.
Very little is left of the former town, except for a few houses and some concrete ruins of the mill. The mill machinery was all moved away. Most of the former supporting structures, such as the school, boarding houses and general store were later torn down.
Geography
Elevation is 1,286 feet/392 m.
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See also
* List of ghost towns in Oklahoma
The U.S. state of Oklahoma has an estimated two thousand ghost towns. These towns began for a number of reasons, often as liquor towns, boomtowns, or mining towns, with some pre-dating statehood. The population and activity later declined in ...
References
Ghost towns in Oklahoma
Populated places in Grady County, Oklahoma
1911 establishments in Oklahoma
1930 disestablishments in Oklahoma
Populated places established in 1911
Populated places disestablished in 1930
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