PICHER, Oklahoma (CNN)-- Wearing powder blue pants and a plaid fedora, 84-year-old Orval "Hoppy" Ray arrived ... "like Las Vegas," Hoppy recalled. See photos of the town » When the mines slowed ...

PICHER, Okla ... quiet northeastern corner of Oklahoma, near the Kansas and Missouri borders. Among those still living and working in the town is 59-year-old Gary Linderman, who has owned ...

PICHER, Oklahoma -- Almost no one lives in Picher ... Driving into Picher, Christmas decorations adorn the street corner where an old building barely stands, caved in, burned and vandalized.

But the population of Picher, Oklahoma, slowly dwindled over the last several decades to now empty. The town Picher, Okla. is seen nestled among huge lead-laced piles of rock, Saturday ...

PICHER, Oklahoma (CNN)-- Wearing powder blue pants and a plaid fedora, 84-year-old Orval "Hoppy" Ray arrived ... "like Las Vegas," Hoppy recalled. See photos of the town » When the mines slowed ...