Centralia, Pennsylvania
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| Centralia, Pennsylvania | |
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  Centralia, Pennsylvania
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| Coordinates: | |
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| Country | United States |
| State | Pennsylvania |
| County | Columbia |
| Settled | 1841 |
| Incorporated | 1866 |
| Area | |
| - Total | 0.2 sq mi (0.6 km²) |
| Population (2000) | |
| - Total | 21 |
| - Density | 87.5/sq mi (33.8/km²) |
| Time zone | Eastern (EST) (UTC-5) |
| - Summer (DST) | EDT (UTC-4) |
| Zip code | 17921 |
| Area code(s) | 570 |
Centralia is a borough 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 46-year-old mine fire burning beneath the borough. Centralia is now the least-populous municipality in Pennsylvania, with four fewer residents than the borough of S.N.P.J.
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[edit] History
[edit] 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, when the post office was established and the name was changed to Centralia. 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. Three individuals were convicted of the crime and hanged in the county seat of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania 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, 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]
[edit] Mine fire
In May 1962, 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.
In her 2007 book about Centralia, Joan Quigley asserts that the fire began on May 27 when one of the two commercial haulers serving the borough "hurled hot ashes onto the dump."[3] 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.
The fire remained burning in the lower depths of the garbage and eventually 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 carbon monoxide produced.
In 1979, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas-station owner 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). State-wide attention to the fire began to increase, culminating in 1981 when 12-year-old Todd Domboski fell into a sinkhole four feet wide by 150 feet (46 m) deep that suddenly opened beneath his feet. He was saved after his older cousin pulled him from the mouth of the hole before he could plunge to his probable death. The incident brought national attention to Centralia as an investigatory group – including a state representative, a state senator, and a mine safety director – was coincidentally on a walking tour of Domboski's neighborhood at the time of his incident.
In 1984, 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 state 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 United States Postal Service revoked Centralia's ZIP code, 17927.
[edit] Today
A handful of occupied homes remain in Centralia. Most of the buildings have been razed, and at a casual glance the area now appears to be a meadow with several paved streets 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.[4] The remaining church in the borough holds weekly Saturday night services, and the borough's four cemeteries are still well-maintained. Centralia's cemeteries now have a far greater population than the town, including one on the hilltop that has smoke rising around and out of it.
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 various 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, thus abandonment occurred to the old route with mounds of dirt being 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 very muddy and not accessible to the disabled. The underground fire is still burning and will continue to do so for the indefinite future. There are no current plans to extinguish the fire, which is consuming an eight-mile seam containing enough coal to fuel it for 250 years.[1]
One of the few remaining houses 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 they were demolished. This home was demolished in September 2007. However, there is another house with similar buttresses visible from the northern side of the cemetery, just north of the burning, partially subsumed hillside.[5]
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania did not renew the relocation contract at the end of 2005, and the fate of the remaining residents is uncertain.[6]
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]
[edit] 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. Residents estimate its value to be in the billions of dollars, although the exact amount of coal is not known, especially considering that it has been burning for 45 years. Commonwealth officials have stated that Pennsylvania does not own the mineral rights and has no interest in acquiring them, and no further mining has been done in the area.
[edit] Geography
Centralia is located at (40.803291, -76.341741).[7]
According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 0.2 square miles (0.6 km²), all land.
[edit] Demographics
As of the 2000 census,[8] there were 21 people, 10 households, and 7 families residing in the borough. As of March 2004, there were eighteen people residing in nine dwellings. 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. 0% of the population is below the poverty line.
[edit] In the media
[edit] Literature
- Appalachian Trail, 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 "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' The Tattooed Girl, Alma Busch, is from Centralia.
[edit] 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.[9]
- The town is the inspiration for the 1991 cult film Nothing But Trouble, written by Dan Aykroyd.
- In the film Silent Hill, the town of Silent Hill has been abandoned due to a prolonged mine fire, which director Christophe Gans says was inspired by Centralia.[citation needed] Aspects of this are shown throughout the movie, such as characters wandering through the misty version of Silent Hill wearing mining gear.
[edit] Music
- UK band Spy Versus Spy named a track on their Little Lights album "Waiting For Centralia To Sink".
[edit] Comics
- The town is included in a short documentary on the Broken Saints web comic DVD set.
[edit] Other
- The Squonk Opera wrote and performed a musical called Inferno, re-interpreting Dante Alighieri's Inferno as a trip into Centralia.
- 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 was the subject of the opera Burn!, which was performed at the Black Sheep Puppet Festival at the Brewhouse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in September 2001.[citation needed]
[edit] Gallery
 The old municipal dump |
 A plume of smoke wafts from the ground |
 A row home stands alone |
 A notice forbidding hunting |
 A Ukrainian Catholic church |
 A park near the center of town |
 A DEP monitoring hole |
 A DEP underground reading of 187°F (86°C) |
 The ruined section of Route 61, Centralia |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d Krajick, Kevin. Fire in the hole, in Smithsonian Magazine, May 2005
- ^ Couch, Stephen. Presentation at Eastern Section meeting of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers, June 2007
- ^ Quiqley, J. The Day the Earth Caved in: An American Mining Tragedy, Random House, pages 7-8, 226-27.
- ^ TerraServer aerial image of the town, taken in April 1999
- ^ A modern day Ghost Town, Centralia Pennsylvania. Retrieved on 2007-10-10.
- ^ Reading Eagle, January 3, 2006
- ^ US Gazetteer files: 2000 and 1990. United States Census Bureau (2005-05-03). Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
- ^ American FactFinder. United States Census Bureau. Retrieved on 2008-01-31.
- ^ IMDB - "The Town That Was"
[edit] Further reading
- Zasky, Jason. The Unforgettable Fire in Failure Magazine, January 2001
- DeKok, David. Unseen Danger: A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire, iUniverse.com, ISBN 0-595-09270-5
- Moran, Mark. Weird U.S., Barnes & Noble, ISBN 0-7607-5043-2
- Kroll-Smith, J. Stephen, and Couch, Stephen. The Real Disaster Is Above Ground: A Mine Fire and Social Conflict,Univ Pr of Kentucky, January 1990, ISBN-10: 0-8131-1667-8, ISBN-13: 978-0813116679
- Quiqley, Joan. The Day the Earth Caved in: An American Mining Tragedy, Random House, 2007, ISBN 978-1-4000-6180-8
[edit] External links
- Centralia Mine Fire - Town Atop a Burning Coal Mine
- The Town That Was: Chris Perkel and Georgie Roland's Documentary Film about Centralia, PA
- O.T.I.S.: Odd Things I've Seen
- Offroaders.com Centralia photo album
- History of the Centralia Project
- Centralia Mine Fire
- Centralia Mine Fire
- Centralia, Pennsylvania is at coordinates Coordinates:
- Centralia An improvisational comedy group named after Centralia, Pennsylvania.
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