It becomes a kind of loneliness to the owner of the company opened last man in Picher, who has been abandoned in recent years due to lead contamination.
"It is time for me to go yet," said Gary Linderman, owner of Old Miner Pharmacy as Picher center is located at the northeast corner of the state.
"I have an obligation to the people. We are all creatures of habit and closing could get rid of them."
In addition to providing prescription, the pharmacy is the only place left in town to buy snacks, beverages, OTC medicines and other necessities.
Linderman denied a purchase from the federal government, which declared Picher a Superfund site in 1981 and bought about 900 homeowners and businesses. Crews demolished a funeral home, restaurant, thrift shop, apartment building and other structures of this week, with more to come.
In addition to pollution by lead, Picher has suffered in recent years from wells that threaten to engulf the community in the old mines below. Three years ago, a tornado destroyed about 150 homes, more people chasing.
Picher population of 1,640 has been reduced in 2000 to only a handful of residents today. The school district and the city government dissolved in 2009 and closed the post office.
The city had over 14,000 inhabitants in the 1920's.
Due to the historical significance, a church, museum of mining, the auction house and a building where they sell mining equipment will remain standing, despite being abandoned. Linderman building will be surrounded by vacant lots in what used to be the center, but he did not seem to care.
"I'ma farm boy," he said. "I'm used to open spaces."
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