A century ago, Centralia, Pennsylvania was a busy small town filled with shops, residents and a brisk mining business. Coal from local mines fueled its homes and its economy, and its 1,200 residents worked, played and lived as tight-knit neighbors.
Today couldn鈥檛 be more different. Centralia鈥檚 streets are abandoned. Most of its buildings are gone, and smoke wafts down graffiti-strewn highways where a prosperous town once stood. The formerly busy burg has turned into a ghost town. The cause was something that鈥檚 still happening beneath Centralia鈥檚 empty streets: a mine fire that鈥檚 been burning for over 50 years, resulting in the devastation of a community and the eviction and impoverishment of many of its residents.
Coal seam fires are nothing new, but Centralia鈥檚 is the United States鈥 worst and one of history鈥檚 most devastating. Before the 1962 fire, Centralia had been a mining center for over a century. Home to a rich deposit of anthracite coal, the town was incorporated after mining began in the 1850s.
Mining defined life in Centralia, from its rough-and-tumble residents to its seedier side. During the 1860s, the town was home to members of the Molly Maguires, a secret society that originated in Ireland and made its way to American coal mines along with Irish immigrants. In the late 1860s, the Molly Maguires are suspected to have committed a rash of violence within Centralia. As Pennsylvania historian Deryl B. Johnson notes, the Molly Maguires were implicated in everything from the murder of the town鈥檚 founder, Alexander Rae, to the death of the area鈥檚 first priest. 鈥淪ome believe that the Mollies were guilty, while others claim that the Mollies were framed by owners of the mines who feared that the members of the Mollies and [other organizations] would organize the mine workers into unions," Johnson. Eventually, after a brutal attempt to subdue the Mollies and the execution of some of the groups鈥 suspected leaders in 1877, the crime wave ended.
Centralia鈥檚 dependence on mining didn鈥檛, though. By 1890, it was home to 2,700 people, most of them miners or their family members. And even though the stock market crash and Great Depression struck a strong blow to the coal industry in Centralia, it didn鈥檛 kill the town.
It took a tragedy to do that, but it鈥檚 not entirely clear how the tragedy began. It seems to have started with the Centralia landfill, an abandoned mine pit that had been converted into a garbage dump in 1962. Trash was a thorny issue in Centralia, which was full of unregulated dumps, and the city council wanted to solve the problem with unwanted odors and rats.
In May 1962, the city council proposed cleaning up the local landfill in time for Centralia鈥檚 Memorial Day festivities. 鈥淭his might seem like irrelevant, small-town history except for one thing,鈥 wrote David Dekok in Fire Underground, his history of the fire: 鈥淐entralia Council鈥檚 method for cleaning up a dump was to set it on fire.鈥 Though competing theories exist about how the fire was sparked, it鈥檚 thought that the Centralia dump fire sparked a much larger mine fire beneath the town.
Soon, a fire was raging in a coal seam beneath Centralia. It spread to mine tunnels beneath town streets, and the local mines closed due to unsafe carbon monoxide levels. Multiple attempts were made to excavate and put out the fire, but all of them failed. The reason, ironically, is the aftermath of the mining that defined Centralia for all of those years. There are so many abandoned mine tunnels in the area that one, could be fueling the fire鈥攁nd it would be prohibitively expensive and likely impossible to figure out which ones stoke the fire and to close off every single one of them.
As the years went on, the ground beneath the city itself became hotter and hotter, reaching over 900 degrees Fahrenheit in some locations. Smoke poured from sinkholes and gas-filled basements. Residents started to report health problems and homes began to tilt. 鈥淓ven the dead cannot rest in peace,鈥 Greg Walter for People in 1981. 鈥淕raves in the town鈥檚 two cemeteries are believed to have dropped into the abyss of fire that rages below them.鈥 Earlier that year, a 12-year-old boy fell into a sudden sinkhole created by the fire, barely escaping death.
By then, it was too late for Centralia. Rather than put out the fire, Congress decided to buy out its residents, paying them to move. Then, in 1992, Pennsylvania moved to kick the holdouts out for good. All of Centralia鈥檚 buildings were condemned; its ZIP code was . Seven residents via court order; they are forbidden from passing down their property or selling it.
Today, Centralia still burns as one of 38 known active mining fires in Pennsylvania. According to the state鈥檚 Department of Environmental Protection, the fire could burn for another century if left uncontrolled. Modern-day Centralia is known as much for the blaze鈥攁nd the graffiti that covers its abandoned highway鈥攁s for the mining that once sustained it. And forget extinguishing the fire that has turned the town from a small mining center to a place infamous for its hidden blaze: As geologist Steve Jones 厂尘颈迟丑蝉辞苍颈补苍鈥檚 Kevin Krajick, 鈥淧utting it out is the impossible dream.鈥
