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The people from the big cities have no idea what real life is like in this part of the American prairie. It feels like the land around you goes on forever and time stands still. People come in, they're like, "Hey, where are all the TPS of the Indian?" It's because you get a bad view of what it is. We're not city people. We don't really care for city ways. Yet, on a 200- mile road trip from Kansas and into Oklahoma, we pass through an abandoned town in Native American country before ending in a city that is booming and paying people to move there.
I know people that's coming from Denmark, Amsterdam, just to come to live to Tulsa. In each place, we encountered a unique story and people far more interesting and complicated than many assume this part of the country to be. Start young and hope you don't get hurt. So, if you want to know the true middle America, come with us to the prairie. This video ends in a city that is rapidly growing. But it starts in Pittsburgh, Kansas, a town defined by its fried chicken rivalry. Chicken Annies and Chicken Marys originally opened to feed the thousands of European coal miners who arrived here in the early 1900s.
We were stopped out the side of the road and a guy in a Chicken Mary's van asked if we were okay. So now we're going to follow him and see if we could hear the full story. How you doing? So much. I went over and asked for a job and she said sure. No child labor laws back then. I was only 12 years old. I've been here ever since. Just over a little bit is where Mary lived and Annie lived down the street. I'm not saying in the early years it was friendly. It was not. I know people would get run off the road if they was trying to turn in here instead of going by.
Someone doesn't really know about this part of the country living here, being from here. Like, how do you explain? It's very rural. It's it's very family oriented, you know? It's all about people. We're not city people. We don't really care for city ways. While there, we heard about Pitcher, the most toxic ghost town in America. So, that's where we headed next, 40 miles to the south, over the Oklahoma border. Pitcher was once a lead and zinc mining hub, but lead poisoning in the 1980s and a tornado in 2008 all but killed the place. Today, no one remains.
2009, the government disinccorporated the city and made it a mandatory that everybody move out. So now we're here and there's like a memorial to the school, home of the gorillas, abandoned buildings over there, right here behind. Um, and essentially a ghost town. Before reaching our final destination of Tulsa, we had two more stops, both in Native American territory. We first entered Cherokee Nation and the town of Venita, whose main street is right along Route 66. This was an old dress spout. So, they're bailed out that figured out.
Hi, Mr. See you, man. It's It's a nice little place to live. It's quiet. It's starting to uh have a little life back in. Lady came in yesterday. Oh, she was in her 80s. I bet she spent half her time over here talking to Jesse. She just thought he was the neatest thing. So, you never drink it alone at this farm. Yeah. You tell you can tell him anything you want. You keep your secret. Are there a lot like people that meet here from other countries or really? Yeah. All the time. Like they'll come in the antique mall. I just remember like what in the world brought you to the need to Oklahoma. Like I was born and
raised here. They're like, "The people are just so nice here." And the cost of living is very reasonable compared to other places. You can get a nice home for just a fraction of, you know, other places. Some people come in, they're like, "Hey, where are all the teppes of the Indians?" Because you get a bad view of what it is. Drew is Cherokee and he's Shaunie. And so they do a lot for their people. and make sure that they have health care, a great rate for car tags, um if there's a need that they feel it. We have that southern hospitality. You know, if you're broke down on the side of the road, we're going to stop and help you. You know, you can't find somewhere to stay, we're going to figure out what to do.
Driving further, we entered Oage Nation and reached Pahusca. in the 1920s. Oil reserves made the Oage the richest people per capita in the world. They lived in full-on mansions and drove fancy cars. What happened next is featured in Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon in the so-called Reign of Terror. White settlers murdered Oage people to take over their wealth. Pahusca proceeded to fade away like many great plains towns. And when we arrived, the sun was on its way down after a mostly rainy day and it seemed like a deserted western town. But then we met some cowboys.
Husk is a very unique little town. It had a tremendous early 1900s oil revenue. So like you know for the size of town this is a pretty extraordinary downtown area and it's all made off that oil revenue back in the guilded age. This is amazing uh grass country cattle grazing. The gains are really good here. I mean they grow a lot of grass, grow a lot of beans. Go. So basically my whole life I've been polishing silver and doing stuff like that. The dream is to do something with your hands to make money. And a lot of people fall short of the making money before you know they get to carry on
making stuff with their hands. Mind us. You can say some Egypt came in. Whether it was making a horse or building fence or whatever it was I was doing. I've worked with my hands my whole life. It's just the silver's a lot cleaner and a lot more rewarding. Worth a lot more when you're done. I didn't get into the ranch until I was 17. Okay. Yeah. Was it a family thing or? Nope. My dad paid for me to go to a roping clinic for my graduation. And I met a guy there that lived about 30 minutes from here. 3 months later, he offered me a job. I went to work for him and been doing it ever since. I was homeschooled. I go to school on Spartans public school. My dad built houses for a living and grew up doing that. had
always wanted to do this. Was fortunate enough to have the opportunity. This is a neat town. It's kind of a So, have you ever heard of the Pioneer Woman? Almost everyone mentioned The Pioneer Woman. Kind of started with The Pioneer Woman. I'm Reed Drummond, author of The Pioneer Woman Cooks. A wildly popular lifestyle and food blogger named Reed Drummond who opened a restaurant here in 2016. that helped revitalize the town and all of a sudden tourists were flocking to Bahusca.
She's made this town what it is now. It was kind of a ghost town for a while. Before she was here, there was nothing here. Yeah. The people from the big cities have no idea what real life is like. My until I got the opportunity. Never knew, you know, that you could get a job riding horses and pushing cows around. So, what is like your uh like a dayto-day? So now I just train horses for a living for myself. When I worked on the place, their business was raising cattle for beasts, right? And so everything involved with that as far as feeding them, taking care of them to mean everything.
These are the town pants. I love it. Now, many people who are moving to this part of the country want to make their money go further. And if you too want to improve your finances, you should check out today's sponsor, Current. Current is a banking app that gives you more for your paycheck. Users get paid up to two days faster with direct deposit. And if they overspend a bit, no problem. Current's feef free overdraft gives you up to $200 of overdraft without bank fees. You also get access to over 40,000 fee free ATMs nationwide. On top of that, qualified users get up to $750 paycheck advance, giving you peace of
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Well, life was nothing like this when we were growing up. It was a ghost town, honestly. I mean, these were all dusty window shops and there was hardly anything. I'd say you wouldn't come here when you were kids. I mean, for school and sports, that was about it. You might come pick up a to- go order. There used to be a little Chinese restaurant. Yeah. Back in the day, but that was about the only reason to go downtown. I mean, it was literally bacon at night time. Dark and spooky. The flower moon. Was that like a history that was known? When we were younger, not a lot of people talked about it.
Yeah. Thing was pretty whitewashed. Yeah. Well, from one viewpoint, for sure. From the OE's viewpoint, that's generational trauma. Yeah. And they don't they do a lot for the community. A lot of the roads and infrastructure, they chip in. The town wouldn't be what it is without them. Back in the car, we continued on to our final destination, Tulsa. Tulsa may seem like any midsized American city, but it's not. across the country. These cities have shrunk over the past 50 years as people move to the suburbs or away. People want to come to Tulsa now, and that's really weird. Like, I've always just been like, "No, let's let's let's go somewhere else." But in Tulsa, the city's population has grown constantly for over a century. We
wanted to know why. Oil is one reason. Another is Tulsa Remote, a program that pays people 10,000 to move there for one year. This has brought thousands, most of whom end up staying. I mean, Tulsa Remote's been a really good initiative. Um, bringing people to the city, just working out here. I This is my fifth year working here. Every day, I mean, every day it's, hey, just move here. Um, first time out of the ballpark, first time downtown, just got into town, things like that. So, I'd say it's pretty steady. So, there are tons of transplants here.
I've been here for 3 and 1/2 years. I mean, you can have a good time, but still have some breathing room, some elbow room. maybe cut your cost in half if you come from a larger city like LA or New York. You even develop a bit more of American pride as well. Behind me is a place called the Gathering Place. It's a place that was privately funded. is a massive park, really a place where people come together and it's kind of a sign of where Tulsa is seemingly going. Tulsa was the Bible belt or like the middle of the Bible belt, so it's a large faith community here. I think that there's a lot of different denominations, different church backgrounds and things like that. Like they're all here in Tulsa. Um to me,
cost of living is pretty great. Um I think I'm from Chicago and lived in Chicago for half my life. I enjoy Tulsa better. It's slower paced. I don't I don't worry too much about like crime and chaos and different things like that. Uh where I live is very peaceful. So, uh that's something I do like. I know that Tulsa is not my final destination. So, one day I'm going to move somewhere else, but I'm going to miss, you know, I think it's a great place to begin life and end life. I feel like it's easy to start a family here. I'm from Atlanta and so there's a big difference from Atlanta and Tulsa, just the big chaos and crazy city life. But here is just a sense of peace. That's it.
I first moved here like my first few days like random people would just ask me like, "Oh, where do you go to church at?" And it's like we've had no prior conversation. I think the south is very family oriented in general. I was talking to my wife about um just the difference between what's normal in up north versus what's normal down here. down here you see a whole lot more manners and you see a lot more um people being a lot more hospitality than you see up north because it's more fast. Yeah. The first thing I notic is all you guys have a different shirt that Oh yeah.
I saw Praise the Lord. I didn't know you was wearing that representing down here. You guys are living it out. Yeah, we do. That's the biggest thing. Lifestyle matters. So what are you doing? We're supposed to be filming a video. Oh, I was just checking out the latest Roka news videos, and you should too. To make sure you don't miss them, hit subscribe and follow the channel. This is very typical greasy family diner vibes. I've read a lot about us being the center of the universe. That's why our homeless population is so large because like when they're going to from one side of the country to the other.
It's just kind of like where they end up and we're pretty cheap here. So, it's that's just kind of where it happens. I'm getting a degree in business management and marketing. Trying to finish that to get out of these little high school jobs. I said you didn't need it. I get it tomorrow. Okay. She wants to see you some Don't talk back to me cuz you got people want to come to Tulsa now and that's really weird. Like I've always just been like, "No, let's let's let's go somewhere else." But it's like people who really want to come here. I always say like I don't want to live here, but I wouldn't want to move anywhere else.
Just cuz it's just like I love I don't know. I love it here. I really do. And I recently on Facebook I busted the Clintons for they said they didn't know Epstein. Yeah. and I busted them and the White House sent me the credit card to buy that $60,000 car. Oh wow. Yeah. What should we know about Tulsa? It's spelled backward. It spells a It's a great city to live in. And people come here, they really like it. And most people come I know Amsterdam.
I know people that's coming from Denmark, Amsterdam, just to come to live to Tulsa. It's a really good city. And everybody has to come together. They pull together hard times surviving through the tornadoes and we even had earthquakes and uh fires, floods, and everybody comes together. They pull together as much as they can. Seems like it's a great place to live. In the West End, you get a buy apartment now, get it before it opens, and then when it opens, rent it out at $1,7800 a month. You know, the cost of living is that's what people have been saying. Yeah. Some it' be like $6,900 to live downtown. Mhm. I got an apartment here downtown. I still haven't got an apartment downtown.
800 a month all bills paid. Really nice big compartment. Didn't it Colton? He did too. Is it changing though? Is it getting more expensive? Is it No, not really. The economy itself, the gas prices going down and the cost of living goes down with the economy goes down. But it fluctuates, you know, all kinds of during the disaster with Tesla taking over though. They raising the gas prices just cuz it looks like everybody's going to go electric. So they're just trying to they're just capitalizing on the cap. They already Tesla. Don't get him started. He hate the armor. In Tulsa, we found a small city where people have an easier time affording life. It's a place where you can afford a home and watch a World Cup match with your neighbors at a baseball field on a
balmy summer day. Tulsa, like the towns we saw before it, is changing. From places that once relied on the resources that laid beneath their feet, these towns are carving out new identities. Still, all these places remain undeniably quintessentially American.
