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Centralia is a borough and ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its population has dwindled from over 1,000 residents in 1981 to 12 in 2005^[1] and 9 in 2007,^[2] as a result of a mine fire burning beneath the borough since 1962. Centralia is now the least-populous municipality in Pennsylvania, with four fewer residents than the borough of S.N.P.J..

Centralia is part of the Bloomsburg–Berwick Micropolitan Statistical Area. The borough is completely surrounded by Conyngham Township.

All properties in the borough were claimed under eminent domain by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1992 (and all buildings therein were condemned), and Centralia's ZIP code was revoked by the Post Office in 2002.^[1] However, a few residents continue to reside there in spite of a failed lawsuit to reverse the eminent domain claim.

History

Early history

Johnathan Faust opened Bull's Head Tavern in 1841 in what was then Roaring Creek Township. In 1854, Alexander W. Rea, a civil and mining engineer for the Locust Mountain Coal and Iron Company, moved to the site and laid out streets and lots for development. The town was known as Centreville until 1865. There was another Centreville in Schuylkill County, however, and the Post Office would not allow a second one, so Rea renamed his village Centralia.^[3]

Centralia was incorporated as a borough in 1866. The anthracite coal industry was the principal employer in the community. Coal mining continued in Centralia until the 1960s, when most of the companies went out of business. Bootleg mining continued until 1982. Strip and open-pit mining is still active in the area, and there is an underground mine employing about 40 employees three miles to the west.

The borough was also a hotbed of Molly Maguires activity during the 1860s and 1870s. The borough's founder, Alexander Rea, was one of the victims of the secret order when he was murdered just outside of the borough on October 17, 1868.^[4] Three individuals were convicted of the crime and hanged in the county seat of Bloomsburg, on March 25, 1878. Several other murders and arsons also occurred during this period.

The borough was served by two railroads, the Philadelphia and Reading and the Lehigh Valley, with the Lehigh Valley being the principal carrier. Rail service ended in 1966. The borough operated its own school district with elementary schools and a high school within its precincts. There were also two Catholic parochial schools in the borough. The borough once had seven churches, five hotels, twenty-seven saloons, two theatres, a bank, a post office, and fourteen general and grocery stores. During most of the borough's history, when coal mining activity was being conducted, the town had a population in excess of 2,000 residents. Another 500 to 600 residents lived in unincorporated areas immediately adjacent to Centralia.^[1]

Mine fire

It is not known for certain how the fire that made Centralia essentially unlivable was ignited. One theory asserts that in May 1962, the Centralia Borough Council hired five members of the volunteer fire company to clean up the town landfill, located in an abandoned strip-mine pit next to the Odd Fellows Cemetery. This had been done prior to Memorial Day in previous years, when the landfill was in a different location. The firefighters, as they had in the past, set the dump on fire and let it burn for a time. Unlike in previous years, however, the fire was not extinguished correctly.

Other evidence supports this theory, as stated in Joan Quigley's 2007 missive, such as the fact that one of two trash haulers (Curly Stasulevich or Sam Devine) dumped hot ash and/or coal discarded from coal burners into the open trash pit. The borough, by law, was responsible for installing a fire-resistant clay barrier between each layer, but fell behind schedule, leaving the barrier partly incomplete. This allowed the hot coals to penetrate the vein of coal underneath the pit and light the subsequent subterranean fire. Quigley cites "interviews with volunteer firemen, the former fire chief, borough officials, and several eyewitnesses, as well as contemporaneous borough council minutes" as her sources for this explanation of the fire.^[5] Another theory of note is the Bast Theory. It states that the fire was burning long before the alleged trash dump fire. However, due to overwhelmingly contrary evidence, few hold this position and give it little credibility.^[5]

The fire remained burning underground and spread through a hole in the rock pit into the abandoned coal mines beneath Centralia. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, and it continued to burn throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Adverse health effects were reported by several people due to the byproducts of the fire, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and a lack of healthy oxygen levels.

In 1979, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas-station owner and then mayor, John Coddington, inserted a stick into one of his underground tanks to check the fuel level. When he withdrew it, it seemed hot, so he lowered a thermometer down on a string and was shocked to discover that the temperature of the gasoline in the tank was 172 °F (77.8 °C). Statewide attention to the fire began to increase, culminating in 1981 when 12-year-old resident Todd Domboski almost fell into a sinkhole four feet wide by 150 feet (46 m) deep that suddenly opened beneath his feet in a backyard.

In 1984, the U.S. Congress allocated more than $42 million for relocation efforts. Most of the residents accepted buyout offers and moved to the nearby communities of Mount Carmel and Ashland. A few families opted to stay despite warnings from Pennsylvania officials.

In 1992, Pennsylvania claimed eminent domain on all properties in the borough, condemning all the buildings within. A subsequent legal effort by residents to have the decision reversed failed. In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service revoked Centralia's ZIP code, 17927.^[1][6]

Today

Very few homes remain standing in Centralia; most of the abandoned buildings have been demolished by humans or nature. At a casual glance, the area now appears to be a field with many paved streets running through it. Some areas are being filled with new-growth forest. Most of Centralia's roads and sidewalks are overgrown with brush, although some areas appear to be mowed.^[7] The remaining church in the borough, St. Mary's, holds weekly services on Sunday and is unaffected by the fire. The town's four cemeteries—including one on the hilltop that has smoke rising around and out of it—are maintained in good condition and now have a far greater population than the town.

The only indications of the fire, which underlies some 400 acres (1.6 km²) spreading along four fronts, are low round metal steam vents in the south of the borough and several signs warning of underground fire, unstable ground, and carbon monoxide. Additional smoke and steam can be seen coming from an abandoned portion of Pennsylvania Route 61, the area just behind the hilltop cemetery, and other cracks in the ground scattered about the area. Route 61 was repaired several times until its final closing. The current route was a detour around the damaged portion during the repairs and became a permanent route in the mid-1990s; mounds of dirt were placed at both ends of the former route, effectively blocking the road. Pedestrian traffic is still possible due to a small opening about two feet wide at the north side of the road, but this is muddy and not accessible to the disabled. The underground fire is still burning and will continue to do so for a predicted 250 more years.^{[citation needed]}

Prior to its demolition in September 2007, the last remaining house on Locust Avenue was notable for the five chimney-like support buttresses along each of two opposite sides of the house, where the house was previously supported by a row of adjacent buildings before it was demolished. Another house with similar buttresses is visible from the northern side of the cemetery, just north of the burning, partially subsumed hillside.^[8]

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania did not renew the relocation contract at the end of 2005, and the fate of the remaining residents is uncertain.^[9]

In 2010, only five homes remain as state officials try to vacate the remaining residents and demolish what's left of the town.^[10]

It is expected that many former residents will return in 2016 to open a time capsule buried in 1966 next to the veterans' memorial.^[1]

Mineral rights

Several current and former Centralia residents believe the state's eminent domain claim was a ploy to gain the mineral rights to the anthracite coal beneath the borough.^[11] Residents estimate its value to be in the billions of dollars, although the exact amount of coal is not known.^[12] In a nearby municipality, the government was successful in extinguishing a similar mine fire using methods like those proposed for and used in Centralia.^[13]

Demographics

As of the 2000 census,, there were eighteen people residing in nine dwellings (more recent statistics in 2007 report half as many residents). The population density was 87.5 people per square mile (33.8/km²). There were sixteen housing units at an average density of 66.7 people per square mile (25.7/km²). The racial makeup of the borough was 100% white.

There were ten households out of which one (10%) had children under the age of 18 living with them, five (50%) were married couples living together, one had a single female householder, and three (30%) were non-families. Three of the households were made up of individuals, and one had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.10, and the average family size was 2.57.

In the borough, the population was spread out with one (5%) resident under the age of 18, one from 18 to 24, four (19%) from 25 to 44, seven (33%) from 45 to 64, and eight (38%) who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 62 years. There were ten females and eleven males with one male under the age of 18.

The median income for a household in the borough was $23,750, and the median income for a family was $28,750. The per capita income for the borough was $16,083. None of the population is below the poverty line.

Police

Though it originally fielded its own three-man department (one full time chief and two part-time officers) during the latter part of the twentieth century, Centralia Borough is now patrolled by the Pennsylvania State Police Bloomsburg Station.

Emergency Services

The Borough is currently served by the still active Centralia Fire Company #1 and the Centralia Fire Company Community Ambulance, both of which are based in the Borough Municipal Building.

In the media

Literature

• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson describes a visit to the town.
• Jennifer Finney Boylan's novel The Planets (written under the name James Boylan) and its sequel The Constellations are both set in Centralia.
• Centralia is the hometown of the main character in the novel Dirty Blonde by Lisa Scottoline.
• In the 2003 book Bubbles Ablaze by Sarah Strohmeyer, Centralia is the inspiration for the fictional town of Limbo, Pennsylvania.
• In March 1991, Centralia was the subject of an article ("Don't Go There") in National Lampoon magazine.
• The main character in Joyce Carol Oates's The Tattooed Girl, Alma Busch, is from Centralia.
• Douglas Soderberg's 1986 one-act play The Root of Chaos is set in Centralia, and depicts a working-class family coming to terms with their house sinking from the coal fire.
• The June 22, 1981, issue of People Magazine discusses the borough's dilemma in "A Town with a Hot Problem Decides Not to Move Mountains but to Move Itself".
• TIME also presents Centralia's problems in its June 22, 1981, issue, in "The Hottest Town in America".
• Centralia is documented in photographs and oral histories in Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania by Renee Jacobs, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.
• Centralia is the model for the eponymous fictional town of Coal Run, written by Tawni O'Dell. The book is about the life of Ivan Zoschenko, a former football hero known locally as The Great Ivan Z, but who is now the deputy of a nearby town. Ivan grew up in Coal Run, which, like Centralia, is nearly abandoned because of underground fires in the coal seams beneath the town. However, Coal Run's fires are a result of a mine explosion that took the lives of 96 men, including Ivan's father.
• Centralia is the location for the final scenes in the novel Vampire Zero by David Wellington.
• Dean Koontz's novella "Strange Highways" takes place in a town similar to Centralia.

Film

• The town and its few remaining residents are the focus of Chris Perkel and Georgie Roland's 2007 feature-length documentary The Town That Was.^[15]

• The town is the inspiration for the 1991 cult film Nothing But Trouble, written by Dan Aykroyd.
• In the 2006 horror film Silent Hill, the town of Silent Hill has been abandoned due to a prolonged mine fire, which writer Roger Avary says was inspired by Centralia.^[16] Aspects of this are shown throughout the movie, such as characters wandering through the misty version of Silent Hill wearing mining gear.
• The town circa 1987 is prominently featured in the opening minutes of the 1987 film Made in USA as the home town of the lead characters.^[17]

Comics

• The town is included in a short documentary on the Broken Saints web comic DVD set.
• Centralia appears in Alan Moore's Saga of the Swamp Thing in the 1985 story arc "The Nukeface Papers".

Other

• The Squonk Opera wrote and performed a musical entitled Inferno (working and debut title of Burn), re-interpreting Dante Alighieri's Inferno as a trip into Centralia.
• The town of Centralia was featured in the episode "Engineering Disasters #7" of Modern Marvels on the History Channel.
• The town was featured in episode #59, "Fire", of the radio program This American Life.
• The town was featured in an episode of Life After People: The Series on the History Channel. It was used as an example of what would happen to a town after twenty five years without humans.
• Episode 200 of The Simpsons ("Trash of the Titans") was loosely based on the history of Centralia. In the episode, Homer becomes Springfield's Sanitation Commissioner and charges other towns to dump their trash in Springfield's abandoned mine. When trash begins coming out of the ground, the entire town is relocated.
• The town of Centralia is the childhood home of Catherine "Cate" Marie Fante, main character in Lisa Scottoline's "Dirty Blonde".

Gallery

See also

• Burning Mountain
• Byrnesville, Pennsylvania

References

Further reading

• DeKok, David. Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire, University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 0-595-09270-5.
• Jacobs, Renee. Slow Burn: A Photodocument of Centralia, Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986, ISBN 0-812-21235-5.
• Kroll-Smith, J. Stephen, and Couch, Stephen. The Real Disaster Is Above Ground: A Mine Fire and Social Conflict, University Press of Kentucky, January 1990, ISBN 0-8131-1667-8, ISBN 978-0813116679.
• Moran, Mark. Weird U.S., Barnes & Noble, ISBN 0-7607-5043-2.
• Quigley, Joan. The Day the Earth Caved in: An American Mining Tragedy, Random House, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4000-6180-8.
• Inferno: The Centralia Mine Fire.

External links

• First Hand Account of Centralia With Pictures
• Everything2 account of the full history of the fire and political excuses for not putting out the fire in its first year
• Centralia Mine Fire - Town Atop a Burning Coal Mine
• O.T.I.S.(Odd Things I've Seen): A Firsthand Account of Centralia, PA
• The Town That Was: Chris Perkel and Georgie Roland's Documentary Film about Centralia, PA
• Offroaders.com Centralia photo album
• History of the Centralia Project
• Centralia Mine Fire
• Centralia Mine Fire
• Columbia County Parcel Viewer Interesting tool to use to see who still owns property in Centralia instead of the government

2010,03,16

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