In this May 24, 2012 photo, Route 61 is shown eroded and covered in graffiti in Centralia, Pa. Fifty years ago a fire at the town dump spread to a network of coal mines underneath hundreds of homes and business in the northeastern Pennsylvania borough of Centralia, eventually forcing the demolition of nearly every building.
Thompson has covered state government for The Patriot since 1999. Prior to that, he had covered various Cumberland County municipalities and school districts. Thompson lives in Carlisle with his wife, Beth, and their two children.
AP Photo/Michael Rubinkam
In this May 24, 2012 photo, Route 61 is shown eroded and covered in graffiti in Centralia, Pa. Fifty years ago a fire at the town dump spread to a network of coal mines underneath hundreds of homes and business in the northeastern Pennsylvania borough of Centralia, eventually forcing the demolition of nearly every building.
The “Graffiti Highway,” that informal landmark / ATV trail / hangout that has been one of Centralia’s calling cards for the last generation, is getting erased from the map of Pennsylvania curiosities.
Dan Gleiter / PennLive
FILE PHOTO: Graffiti covers an abandoned section of Route 61 near Centralia on Oct. 31, 2013.
The project, the first phase of which is expected to take three days, was first reported Monday by The Daily Item of Sunbury.
It earned the full endorsement of Tom Hynoski, Centralia’s borough secretary, in a telephone interview with PennLive later in the day.
“I mean we are overrun with the ATVs on the weekend,” Hynoski said of the crowds that regularly gather for off-road trail-riding adventures, or to make their mark on the road,, or both. “And the last month here, with all of the people out of work because of the coronavirus, it got totally out of control. Everybody’s been requesting that something get done.”
There were some mourners, too.
On the “Centralia Graffiti HIghway” Facebook page, which boasted 676 members as of Monday evening, sentiment ran more on the side of mourning what some saw as a cool memorial to the memory of Centralia, the Columbia County community that was effectively turned into a ghost town by an underground mine fire that started in 1962.
“There is a reason this group was created,” wrote a poster identified as Jason Boyle. “The road was a piece of history and it was also something to do for us locals.”
“This is so disappointing to see,” agreed another poster, identified as David Steward. “It’s one of the few places I wanted to bring my daughter back to when I get back home for a visit as she barely remembers it.”
Sean Simmers / PennLive
FILE PHOTO: People explore “Grafitti Highway,” an abandoned piece of Route 61 just south of Centralia, on May 24, 2016. The mine fire posed a real threat to the structural integrity of it. Subsidence was leading to uneven surfaces and steam poured out through cracks in the asphalt. Today the abandoned section of Route 61 is a favorite location for tourists.
Many, like Hynoski, blamed the problems on out-of-towners who came to use the area as their personal campground, and then at times pulled additional stunts like partying in a nearby cemetery and defacing graves there, running their ATVs through the remaining residents’ properties and even, on at least one occasion, breaking into their homes out of the belief that they were abandoned.
The Patriot-News
FILE PHOTO: Steam from the Centralia mine fire doesn’t keep residents from walking their dogs in the area on May 24, 2002. Evidence of people who have passed through — garbage, beer bottles, old tires — is everywhere in the hilltop area.
The borough itself counts eight residents at this point, Hynoski said, scattered among five households.
The Graffiti Highway, most of it actually lies in Conyngham Township, was closed to traffic in 1993. PennDOT, after determining that the ground would never again be used for a highway, relinquished its right-of-way in 2018 allowing ownership to revert to adjacent property owners, the largest of which is a Pagnotti subsidiary known as Pitreal Coal.
The strip of asphalt got its latter-day name because of messages and art that have been placed on the surface since its closure.
Pennsylvania State Police Corporal Tyler Waters said Monday the stretch was a nuisance for his colleagues, in part because visitors would routinely tear down the posted “No Trespassing” signs. That made it impossible for the police to enforce that baseline violation for long periods of time.
Troopers were posted at the site Monday mostly as a precaution, Waters said, to prevent ATV riders from getting into an accident when they suddenly come upon heavy equipment that involved in the fill operation.
PennLive’s effort to reach Pagnotti’s offices Monday were not successful.
Bobby Hughes, an officer of the Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation which is spearheading a movement to plant trees across the old town, said he believes the landfill operation will be beneficial for the area, which he said his volunteers crews have spent recent years picking up countless spray paint cans, tires and other trash.
“People seemed to feel a sense of entitlement to that area,” Hughes said Monday, “but there are better ways to commemorate Centralia’s history.”
Sean Simmers / PennLive
FILE PHOTO: Tom Dempsey and George Fogel witnessed the start of the Centralia mine fire when they were teenagers in 1962 and tried unsuccessfully to help put it out, May 29, 2005.
FILE PHOTO: Todd Domboski, 12, of Centralia, Pennsylvania, looks over a police barricade at the hole he fell through just hours before photo was taken on Feb. 14, 1981 in Centralia. The hole was caused by a mine fire that’s been burning since 1962.
FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises from the ground in this general view of Centralia, Pennsylvania on Jan. 26, 1983 where an uncontrolled, 20-year-old underground mine fire is raging. A resident of the town says: “It’s hell on earth.”
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Bureau of Mines’ John Stockalis, right, and Dan Lewis drop a thermometer through a hole on Main Street in Centralia, Pennsylvania on April 2, 1981, to measure the heat from a mine shaft blaze that has burned for 19 years. Townspeople will vote on May 19 to decide if the town should be relocated so the fire can be dug out.
Centralia background
The underground fire that pushed Centralia into Pennsylvania lore started when a group of paid fireman, on May 27, 1962, started a fire to clean up the town dump before Memorial Day. Firefighters thought they had extinguished the blaze but it spread through an opening in the pit to abandoned coal mines under the town.
FILE PHOTO: Steam rises from the Centralia mine fire in the area where the fire is close to the surface on May 24, 2002. The fire started in 1962.
As the result of a study on how best to address the underground fire, more than 1,000 Centralia residents were moved out in the late 1980s in a $42 million federal relocation program.
With the population down to about 50, then-Gov. Robert Casey in 1992 authorized condemnation proceedings through the Columbia County Redevelopment Authority. The U.S. Postal Service in 2002 discontinued Centralia’s 17927 zip code and then-Gov. Ed Rendell in 2009 began the formal eviction of the few remaining residents.
Attempts to stop condemnation proceedings ended in 2013 with a settlement of a federal lawsuit. It resulted in the state paying the seven remaining residents $349,500 for their properties with the stipulation they could remain in their homes until they die.