Volume 8 , Issue 31

Meers Store & Restaurant (Meers, OK)

"The old town of Meers sprang up during the gold rush days in the Wichita Mountains at the turn of the twentieth century. Gold fever swept the Wichita's during the 1890s fueled by tales of old Spanish mines and such stories as the report of a housewife near Meers who found a gold nugget "as large as No. 8 birdshot" in the claw of a chicken she was preparing for Christmas dinner. However, "Old-timers" in the Meers area say that a mine supply company in Kansas City, found itself with a large inventory of equipment as a result of a slowdown in the mines in Colorado. They purchased a mine in the Meers area, brought in miners from Cripple Creek, Colorado and "salted" the mine with gold nuggets from Colorado. And the rush was on! On May 23, 1901, a group of miners met at the base of Mt. Sheridan, near where the present cedar grove is located, and organized a mining district. Out of respect for the first prospectors in the area, the miners named their camp Meers after Colonel Andrew Jackson Meers, who in 1989 found mineral rich quartzite outcroppings near the site...." -- Meers Store & Restaurant History
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