Centralia, Pennsylvania

Centralia is the the most famous ghost town in the Keystone State.  Its sinister acclaim is a regular draw for thrill seekers and ghoulish tourists from New York, New Jersey, and even further afield.  Most people today know the place merely as an abandoned townsite with graffiti on the streets and noxious gases seeping from the ground.  Few people remember that this ill-fated place first gained the national spotlight in 1948 when United Airlines Flight # 624 crashed into the ridge above town, killing all forty-three people aboard.  Long before the now-forgotten plane crash and the ongoing mine fire (which ended up putting an end to this borough), the bloodthirsty Molly Maguires are known to have terrorized the place.  I say this with all sympathy for those who mourn its passing, but Centralia seems like accursed ground.

 There's really not all that much to see in Centralia: empty streets that once were lined with homes and businesses.  Whole city blocks stand empty, the buildings long ago demolished.  But oddly enough, the derelict streets are completely cleared of snow.  It seems like a curious use of taxpayers' dollars.

Centralia is located in the grimmest stretches of coal country.  The area might actually have a kind of beauty to it--enclosed and claustrophobic between wooded peaks--except that so much land is torn up with strip mines and bleak little mining towns.  Pickup trucks.  Rundown houses.  Vacant storefronts.  The many onion dome churches attest to the presence of Eastern European settlers in these dark valleys.  This small church seems to be the last functional public building left in Centralia.

Since 1963, a hellish coal fire has been raging in the labyrinth of old mines beneath Centralia.  Smoke is said to billow from the ground in certain spots, though I didn't see any.  Sinkholes have opened up and nearly swallowed people.  The state began forcing evacuation of the town in the mid-2000s, though a few hangers-on remain.  I refrained from photographing the three or four occupied houses...out of respect for their die-hard occupants.  This last photo is old PA 61, where it was melted by the fires beneath and rerouted.