Click on the buttons for a larger view. There are two men on the extreme right that don't show in this panorama.
I really didn't know
where to put this picture. It belonged, with many
others, to my
grandfather, Jessie Allen Cook (1888-1930. Most of his
pictures were loaned/given
to Gabe McKenzie, by my dad, Fredas Allen Cook (1913-1969)
for display in the
Brass Rail, as they were good friends.
Currently, my sister,
Debbie owns it. It is posted on their (She and her
husband's) website,
http--bretschneider.us-
and she and I disagree on which, if any, is our grandfather.
The picture was taken
April 7, 1923, and says " O. M. Bilharz Mining Co. The
trouble
with that is that there were several Bilharz leases, west of
the Central Mill, so we can't
pin down which mine this was. Since my aunt Zelda was
born in Granby, MO in 1921, this
must have been shortly after they moved to Oklahoma.
They lived in the Buffalo community,
North and a little west of Commerce.
Later, they moved to Picher, where they were living
when grandpa died.
(From the Guestbook)
Checked out your photo of a group of the O M Bilharz Mining
Co of April 1923.
Comments: My grandfather Oscar Max Bilharz, a mining
engineer, moved from the SE Mo. area to Baxter Springs Kan
in the teens and formed the OM Bilharz Mining Co. His mines
were in the Picher and Quapaw area.
He died in Feb 1923 so this picture taken in April was
after my father Oscar William, also a mining engineer,
took over the company. My father isn't in this picture.
Later my father formed his own company
The O. W. Bilharz Mining Co. He continued mining and milling
in the Picher and Baxter Springs areas.
Unfortunately I had to jump the traces and became a nuclear
physicist, retiring to Florida in 1985.