Some have said that if you fall through a crack or crevice in Centralia, Pennsylvania, you will fall straight into the fires of hell. This statement is not exactly too far from the truth. You would indeed fall into a fire deep beneath the earth’s surface, not an eternal fire, but one that has been burning since 1962 and may burn for another 200 years.
vent pipe
Above ground, acres of overgrown streets, crumbling curbs and sidewalks, and a few foundations, hidden in the vegetation, remain. At one gloomy intersection a vent pipe spews smoke. Not far from there is a cracked and warped segment of old highway 61. Most of it has been filled in with dirt to cover the cracks and vents in the pavement. What remains of it is strewn with graffiti, as are many of the other surrounding streets. These once vital thoroughfares vanish into green shades of Birch, Maple and berry thickets Others, when followed, eventually crumble into non-distinguishable rubble that is not easy to negotiate. I followed one paved road that, little by little, became a forest trail.
This is the current state of Centralia, but things were not always so bleak. In fact, the disheartening silence is contradictory to well over a hundred years of vitality that occupied these very roads.
Beginning as a railroad stop named “Bull’s Head” in the early 1850’s, a future town was platted out by Alexander Rae who was a mining engineer. He changed the name to Centreville and again to Centralia in order to appease the U.S. Post Office, which already had a registered “Centreville” in another county. The town was incorporated in 1866. By this time, however, the rich coal deposits had spurred the establishment of a series of mines, and from that time forward Centralia was known as a coal mining town.
But even in those early times there seemed to be some bad omens. Alexander Rae, the town’s founder, was murdered in his buggy by members of the Molly Maguires. The Molly Maguires were a militant sect of Irish American Pennsylvania coal miners who fought against discrimination, poor wages, dangerous working conditions and exploitation. They used violence, intimidation, arson, and whatever means possible to make their point, as evidenced with the Rae murder. Their practices were common here, as Centralia was a hive for this group.
But even with such violence the town grew, and by 1890 the population climaxed at 2,761 souls. This evolution brought with it a swelling of businesses, including five hotels, theaters, banks, stores, and an inevitable 27 saloons.
Although it would eventually take a fire to end the town, it did not take one to begin a slow decline. Production had reached a peak and declined by the turn of the century due to a drop in demand for anthracite fuel sources. Production further dropped in World War One, as many of the miners enlisted in the military. The crash of 1929 closed several mines and several of the abandoned mines attracted the Bootleg Miners. Even with all these setbacks, Centralia still functioned as a coal mining town clear up until the 1960’s.
Centralia 1960’s
Which brings us to that cataclysmic day in May of 1962. Details are contested but apparently the Centralia Fire Dept. decided to burn some trash in an old mine pit. The fire somehow spread beneath ground and ignited a vein of coal. The underground mines have been burning ever since.
Though coal mining was quickly terminated in Centralia, the fire did not cause an immediate abandonment. In fact, in 1980 Centralia still had a population of just over a thousand people. The remaining townsfolk had gone about their business, fully aware of the fire beneath their feet and finding cracks in roads and fields where smoke escaped. But these proud citizens had not even considered abandoning their homes and businesses. However, about that time the inhabitants began to come to grips with the severity of the problem. A gas station owner tested the temperature of his underground gas tanks to discover they were a hundred degrees hotter than normal. Then, the following year, a boy fell into a sinkhole which opened up beneath him in his grandmother’s backyard. He saved himself by grabbing a tree root. A plume of hot steam billowed from the hole. When tested it was found to contain a lethal level of carbon monoxide.
The federal government got involved and the buy outs began. Nearly all the people accepted the offers and by 1990 only 63 people remained and over 500 buildings had been demolished. From there the population dwindled further and today the number of residents swings between three and five. Likewise, the only intact places I found was a house, a church on the hill, and a well-maintained cemetery.
It is now a lonely and eerie walk around the streets of Centralia. Narrow strips of asphalt cocooned in canopies of overgrowth were once busy streets lined with houses, shops and businesses, evidenced only by occasional sightings of slumped sidewalks, driveways, rock walls, and cement steps to nothing.
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Centralia is spread out, encompassing both sides of current highways 61 and 42. Where they intersect was once downtown, or close to it. Now only the intersection and the stop signs are apparent, unless you go into the vegetation to trip over a hidden curb or a long-discarded household item.
But the true story of this place remains back on the remnants of side streets, out where the forest is retaking the terrain. On one such avenue a warning is spray painted across the center of the fractured asphalt, “STOP GO BACK!!”
With so little left it is hard to imagine how anymore can be taken. But someday even these crumbling streets, foundations and graffiti laden slabs will be gone, and people will stop coming.
The death will be complete and only the fire below will remain.
If you would like to learn more about Centralia visit https://www.history.com/articles/mine-fire-burning-more-50-years-ghost-town
read https://outerrealmz.com/dixie-valley-a-very-different-kind-of-ghost-town/ if you would like another example of how a population was forced out of a town.
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