Centralia: A Ghost Town
Centralia, PA
October 2008
I first heard about this town maybe 35 years ago on a segment
of 60 Minutes. A coal-mining town in
Northeast PA, Centralia made national news when one of its mines caught on fire
and the fire couldn’t be contained. Now,
the town was literally on fire, it’s underground foundation slowly burning
away. Somewhere in Washington, someone
in charge declared this town to be a disaster area and FEMA stepped in and
bought the whole town so that people could move out and start all over. The citizens received a settlement for houses
and businesses. Everyone left town except for a dozen families. Their defiance and stubbornness has now left
them with a home of absolutely no value.
Since 1980, I have always wanted to visit this now ghost
town but never got around to it. So, one day, as I suggested it to my visitor
from Germany, he mentioned a Halloween movie about a ghost town that suffered
similar fate. He wanted to see the
town. I pulled out my PA map and found
no reference to this town. I had a vague
idea where it was but I couldn’t locate it.
I searched the Internet and there are sites but I still couldn’t find
the location. The more we searched, the
more determined we were to find this place.
Finally, we found a site that gave a vague reference to its location. So
we set out to explore this abandoned town.
We found what was once the main highway through town and
continued down the road with confidence that we were on our way to
Centralia. Suddenly, the road
stopped. The concrete had buckled up
about three feet and smoke was bellowing out of the cracks. We looked around and the grass was orange. We
looked over the hump of concrete and saw that the road had decayed beyond
repair and there was no more road to travel by car. We would have to go on foot if we wanted to
continue. We walked about ½ mile and became spooked by the quiet and the
creepiness so we turned around and headed back to the car.
We found another road. This road took us to a graveyard,
which was still maintained. The lawn had
been cut and the grass was green. It was the only place in town that still
showed any semblance of care and life.
How ironic that only the dead lived in this town.
We found Main Street now and we only knew that because of
the old photos we saw on the Internet.
We saw the post office and what was once the small general store. We saw a few of the holdout residence, living
in solitude and carcinogenic air.
There are signs posted around town, claiming that Centralia
will never die. “Centralia lives in our hearts forever,” one sign professed. “We love you Centralia” was spray painted on
a sidewalk that now has a big gapping hole.
The word, “you” has been swallowed up by the fire. And as we read this sentiment, it occurs to
both of us that at any moment, maybe we can be swallowed up. We realize it’s
time to go before we are buried alive in the rubble of this once productive
coal-mining town.
