COM/WRI 212 - Blog #7

For my unusual article, I decided to something close to home. The ghost town of Centralia, Pennsylvania has been almost entirely abandoned due to the never ending mine fire underneath the entire the city. Centralia is apart of the Columbia County.

The town was established in 1841 where it became a mining hot spot for Anthracite coal. The town officially became part of the borough in 1866. The town went through its ups and down during the early years of its creation. The town founder was found murdered by members of Molly Maguires. The Molly Maguires also committed many other murders and acts of arson during the late 1800s. The city was most populated in the 1890s with a booming population of 2,761. This allowed for the coal business to mighty well until World War 1 when the majority of young miners enlisted. When the stock market crashed and coal factories were forced to shut down Centralia branches, bootleg mines started appearing. These bootleg mines collapsed due to miners pillar robbing.

In the 1960’s, the Centralia council acquired the rights to all of the coal beneath the city and began mining once more. Two years later, a fire started underneath the town. While the specific detailed of how the fire was triggered, most people agree it was to people not following through with things and being a little lazy. People of Centralia went about their own business although there was fire running all underneath their city. Deadly carbon monoxide levels and sinkholes began appearing all around town. Members of the community did not want to leave the city until 1984.   A few years later, the governor of PA invoked eminent domain over the buildings in Centralia.  In the early 2000s, the U.S Postal Service revoked the zip code of the city.

During that year, U.S Congress offered buyouts to the residents of Centralia. While the majority of people accepted them and moved to neighboring towns, others stayed despite several warnings from Pennsylvania officials.

There are very few homes still left standing in Centralia today. The members of the community still go to church every Sunday and have town hall meetings. The remaining residents of the city have been in a legal battle for the past 20 years to determine the rights they have as Centralia residents. Finally 2013, the last eight residents settled their lawsuit to allow them to stay in their homes for as long as they live. After the last resident of Centralia passes away, the state of Pennsylvania will own the rights to all of the ghost town.

The story of Centralia is something I heard about many of times since we learn just a few hours away from the city. I also have some friends who went up to the ghost town to see it first hand. I never knew there were so many stories behind the city of Centralia. I knew the town had a fire burning underneath it but I did not know how it was started nor did I know the town did not have a zip code anymore. I also didn’t know the residents of the town were in a twenty year lawsuit with the state of PA to allow them to stay, I thought they were just allowed to stay there. The fire underneath Centralia due to the coal surrounding and under the city will burn for at least 250 years. I also learned that the city was inspiration for many books and video games such as Silent Hill and Vampire Hell due to its appearances of Hell. After reading the article, I defiantly think it was a great unusual Wikipedia page. The information of extremely helpful since it allowed me to click on items I didn’t know about like the Molly Maguires as well as whole article on just the fire.  While I could find this information anywhere because there are several books on the town, I felt like the Wikipedia information allowed me to search of information that I might not be able to learn all about within a book.