OKLAHOMA: Empty, Decaying Towns In The Forgotten Side Of The State

all right everyone I am in rural Oklahoma Let's uh show you on the map where I'm at see the Blue Dot Oklahoma City to the east Amarillo to the West Wichita Kansas up here North into the east going to see some interesting towns today many of them nearing Ghost Town status including this first town it's called Gage uh 1910 there were over 900 people here today there are just over 300. the median age here is 48. 51 percent of the town is male 49 is female it is a Saturday about 11 A.M first week of June it's a beautiful day about 73 degrees Fahrenheit 23 Celsius I'll show you some of the sights here um yeah you can see the downtown there is nothing happening here very quiet wow doesn't look like anything has happened here in downtown for a long time anyway let's see a little bit more about the town um 90 percent of Gage is white one percent is Hispanic one percent is Native American and the last eight percent are mixed that is interesting isn't it that is a war memorial believe it or not yeah go for said uh let's see well let me turn around and go back and I'll tell you some more median household income here is 44 500 a year that's 856 dollars a week [Music] poverty is 17 percent children 17 and under it is 29 percent I'm just going to turn right here what do you guys think anyway 65 and older is five percent oh well there's the fire department I didn't see it in the first turn in or the first run through here Let's uh building here though it's been empty a long time all the glass is broken out um let's see crime pretty high here 4.2 incidents per 100 people U.S average is 2.3 so it's almost twice higher than the U.S average um it's almost all property crime though I wish I could say this house is abandoned but it is not somebody lives there nobody lives in this one though again I wish I could say somebody doesn't live in there but they do foreign buy antiques sell business out here now I've looked for some stores grocery store or anything can't really can't really find anything not even a Dollar General here so uh um hey fella yeah I guess um I'm gonna head to the next town interesting town uh it's fading a little bit 1980 was Peak population there was uh 1760 people here today there are a little over 1200. so it's lost in population it uh it's been declining in population for over 40 years a median age here is 36. 55 percent of the town is female 45 percent is male see if I can show you all the great stuff here though huh um as you can see I'm about to turn onto downtown 82 percent of the town is white [Music] 10 is Hispanic four percent is Native American one percent is Asian last three percent is mixed it's pretty quiet isn't it had a lot of rain up here in the area last night cool things down a little bit let's see uh I'm in the first week or it is the first week of June anyway as I drive through this downtown I'll uh tell you a little bit more median household income in this town is forty four thousand five hundred a year that's 856 dollars a week um median home value here is ninety three thousand five hundred anyway so well I'm through downtown let me go uh cruise around and see what else I can find well let's see we got a First Methodist Church here and a couple of dogs just uh hanging out hey fellas well let's see as I drive through uh residential here tell you a bit more poverty level here is 20 overall for children 17 and under it is 33 so that's a little high strangely the poverty level for people 65 and older is zero that is pretty rare crime very low last year they had four crimes per one thousand people this is what happened exactly crime wise they had five total crimes last year five um zero violent crime they had four burglaries and one theft that's what happened here last year in terms of crime that's pretty impressive kind of interesting old stucco houses huh hmm anyway how about if I look around a bit more well just showing you some sights train goes by got an engine just sitting there [Music] it has a big puddle this is for sale need some work I would be curious uh as to what they want for this it would take a lot of work to fix that up wouldn't it but I bet you could get it real cheap for sale by owner now this is a windmill Museum right when you enter town you see all this I thought maybe it was a store that sold them but nope it is a museum and Park they've got all kinds of windmills there that's pretty nifty huh yeah shut up windmill Museum and park a tribute to the Pioneer families who homesteaded ranched and brought Commerce to this region of the high plains there you go [Music] these houses are pretty representative of what you see here or you see a lot of this let's put it that way interesting design yeah these are real old houses [Music] I like them they're definitely old though I really like this one here um I mean it's not in good shape at the moment but that's that's a pretty nice little house fixed up it would be anyway uh anyway okay well cool I'm gonna head to the next town well let's see everyone I am in Arnett [Music] Peak population was in 1980 there were 714 people here today there are about 490 now our net is a county seat so it has a courthouse um the Ellis County Seat it's a beautiful building uh it's a neoclassical architecture so it takes cues from ancient Greece usually one of the elements is Big columns got a couple there yeah but anyway look at it it's a beautiful building let's see um a little bit more about the town the median age of the town is 50. 55 percent of it is female 45 male 85 percent of the people are White 10 percent are Hispanic one percent are Native American and the last four percent are mixed post office in case you're wondering and I'm just kind of driving around the Town Square here giving you a look [Music] let's see median household income is four forty thousand seven hundred a year that's 783 dollars a week is this an old theater formerly a theater sure looks like it at one time it was a a theater the Marquee has probably been pulled off it looks uh like there was a marquee there wow I would have never guessed they would have had a movie theater here [Music] well as I head into residential tell you the median home value 78 800. [Music] let's take a look around uh poverty is 18 percent cost of living here is so low that or though that probably really not a factor so far everything looks pretty decent it's like a pretty nice town yeah that old cabin there was built in 1893 I believe it was the first structure here see I like little houses like this too bad it's um I guess it's abandoned that's a cute little house well they do have um the Necessities a little liquor store here and a little cute little liquor store uh they have a little grocery store here too in case you guys are wondering R and R grocery a little small place looks like and they have a fire department how you doing fella it's giving me a good look well let's see I think I've seen enough of this little town Let's uh head on to the next one what do you guys think I ask you what you guys think all the time don't I when I'm an edit I catch I catch that anyway yeah on to the next town I have arrived in the town of Sharon population 133 there's not a lot about the town on the internet kind of looks close to ghost town to me even though there is a fire department it's right here um yeah it's an old Williams Auto Hardware it's long gone [Music] yeah there's a guy he's here there is a post office to the left I guess that's where he's going a little post office there I do have this church Sharon Methodist Church it's a pretty cool building too um this house here I don't think anybody lives in that well everybody uh I am in the town of Vichy I think that's how it's pronounced [Music] it's Latin for I conquered you see that grain elevator for for quite a distance as you're coming into town it's pretty cool uh the population of uh the town is 576. Peak population was in 1980 there were 928 people here all right so I'm out here in downtown median age is 48. 51 percent of the town is female 49 male let's see uh 87 percent of the town is white one percent is Hispanic and 12 is mixed that's a little unusual median household income is uh forty nine thousand dollars a year it's 944 a week that's pretty good income um yeah they have a police station right here one police car out front and in our city hall yeah you know you're in the country truckers hauling a tractor [Music] hey well let's see I'm gonna look around a little bit more uh let's turn into some residential how's that a median home value here is 99 600. uh that's pretty high or town like this I want to see what else is here definitely seeing some abandoned homes though here there's one right there cool elevator again see poverty here is 16 percent children 17 and under it's 34 though a little bit higher folks 65 and older it's um 10 percent but um right off the bat in case you're wondering where they're getting some their groceries there's the Dollar General I'm pretty sure that's it [Music] crime is very low here in fact last year let's put it this way I couldn't even get a crime rate they had two crimes total here last year that's it and they they were not violent crime they were property crime so yes not a dangerous town I wonder if there's some uh Automotive Treasures in there there might be I'm seeing some pretty cool stuff from the car here wow did you hear that that's a rooster isn't it why not yeah or is that a turkey that's a turkey isn't it [Music] well here is a house that has a lot of stuff out front let's check out the zoom yeah that's a lot of stuff um well they have a church up here looks pretty nice First Christian Church it looks like it has a wood carving of Jesus is that what that is let's see if we can get a look at that yeah is that what that is a wood carving of Jesus that is too cool let's see the town does have a grocery store and guess what it's downtown now that I love that's how you take care of a downtown and it's in a small City is you put all the businesses in downtown I'm going to end this video here uh we are going to head up into Kansas next so be looking for that

Channel: Joe & Nic's Road Trip

Views: 223,346

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Id: u2q8cY7Tg8I

Length: 25min 46sec (1546 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 07 2023