>  OIL TOWN: PONCA CITY, OK

Our unrelenting search for oil is responsible for the creation and destruction of many small towns throughout the Midwestern United States. Nowhere is this cycle more evident than in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Ponca City’s century-long relationship with Conoco Oil has made it one of the richest cities in the United States and now, one of the poorest. Over the last decade, Conoco has relocated its headquarters to larger cities like Houston and Oklahoma City leaving the residents of this once prosperous town struggling to stay above the poverty line.

I have visited Ponca City every year since I was a child and have seen this change. A majority of my family has worked for Conoco Oil, from the tank farms to the executive offices. Over the last 10 years, I have photographed the changing landscape of this dying town: the boarded up businesses unable to compete with the all-encompassing Wal-Mart, the nostalgic old relics from an older America, the sense of loss and absence felt throughout the town. As Ponca City slowly becomes a ghost town, I feel an urgency to photograph it in effort to preserve its history and to honor the people who built their lives in the shadows of the Conoco refineries.