Towards the end of the month, as the nation endured a sweltering heat wave that delivered record breaking temperatures across the country, I made my way to the no longer functioning - and quite literally burning - mining town of Centralia, Pennsylvania.
Just a little under three hours to the west of New York City, Centralia once boasted quite the reputation as a mining hub - having one of the richest deposits of anthracite coal.
Incorporated just after the 1850s, the small town was home to over 2,700 miners and their families by the 1890s, according to History.com. The town had notorious scuffles with the Molly Macguires, a secret society that made its way to mining towns in the Eastern United States by way of Irish immigrants.
For over a century, the city’s economy flourished. But this would all change in 1962 when a disastrous coal mine fire began burning - and it continues to burn to this day.
It isn’t exactly known how the situation got so dire, but it appears to have spawned from the Centralia landfill. The landfill was made from an abandoned mine pit converted into a garbage dump as the city had an issue with illegal dumping, along with undesired odours and rodents.
Ahead of the town’s Memorial Day festivities, the city council decided to fix the landfill problem by setting it ablaze, resulting in a much larger mine fire that sparked beneath the town.
The fire soon spread, prompting the closure of the mine due to unsafe carbon monoxide levels. While there were multiple attempts made to put out the fire, the vast amount of mining tunnels underneath Centralia make it practically impossible to determine where exactly the fire is coming from.
Over the years, the ground beneath Centralia has gotten so hot that it has even reached over 900 degrees Fahrenheit in some locations. Homes were overrun with gas and soon smoke sprouted from the ground. A 12-year-old boy narrowly avoided death after falling into a sudden sinkhole in 1981.
Congress was forced to act, buying out the residents in a bid to get them to evacuate the area. By 1992, Centralia’s buildings were condemned and their ZIP code was no longer in use. A small handful of residents remain and they aren’t allowed to pass down the property or sell it
.
Centralia’s mine fire is just one of 38 still burning in the state. The fire could burn for at least another 100 years, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. Since its closure, Centralia has become a popular destination for dark tourist looking to get close to danger. It even served as the inspiration for the town in the video game "Silent Hill," according to ScreenRant. So we had to check it out.
I made it to the industrial Pennsylvania county at around noon on Monday July 24, driving through the town of Ashland - that has its own ghost hospital - before making it to the Big Mine Run Geyser.
Located just south of Centralia, the small spout of water - and only geyser in the East Coast US - is actually a result of the pressure build up from the mines and water needing somewhere to go. The geyser sits on private property, but off to the side of the road away from the anything else of note.
Water from the geyser is extremely clear and cool, and unknown if drinkable because I was not that brave. A mother and her two sons had just left the slightly unknown tourist attraction once I arrived.
From there, I made my way into Centralia proper - which consists mostly of a few deserted streets with even fewer buildings as most were destroyed when the government stepped in.
Just north of the main road through town is the Centralia Municipal building, which once housed the town’s fire department and police station. A yellow fire truck still sits inside Centralia Fire Company No. 1 and file cabinets line the deserted halls of the police station.
“Keep Centralia on the map,” a sticker reads on the station door, and looking inside, I could see a flyer supporting the run of Tom Corbett for Pennsylvania's Attorney General.
A short drive through more deserted streets, past a single recliner chilling on the side of the road, gets me to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This Catholic church still boasts service for its small handful of members and houses a cemetery in its backyard. I go no further onto the property as a large “No Trespassing” sign advises me to stay away.
There are only a handful of houses still in Centralia, and the people living there could hardly be seen at their homes. One man living just above the evacuation zone directed me to the homes still technically in the zone. No one was around at the time of my trip.
So you’re probably wondering, where is the toxic gas spewing from and is it just emitting a huge plume of smoke? Well, so was I. Unfortunately, well somewhat fortunately, there wasn't smoke wafting about town at the time of my visit.. Google maps has one location actually designated as “active Centralia smoking vents” located just east of where the town appears.
The vents are off to the side of the road, and dense summer foliage in Pennsylvania makes it especially difficult to see from afar. By then, the rain had subsided and I wound up putting my car in park on the road shoulder, walking up a mucky and humid path just to come to a surprising visual before getting to the vents.
Trash! All types of trash littered the ground: beer bottles, mattresses, a large appliance or two and a number of broken bits and bobs. But one thing was certainly clear - folks had repeatedly been in the area, having gatherings of all sorts. Just thinking of folks using the vents as their own “natural” fog machines, provided an amusing visual as I sought the vents.
I finally came upon the first of three visible vents, noticing the smoke billowing out of the ground. Donning my mask - improperly I might add but thankfully I had on long sleeves as “reassurance” - I used a twig here and there to climb my way closer to the vent.
Standing over the hole, I was immediately hit with a gust of hot gas that shocked me in the already humid woods. While I wasn’t trying to inhale too much, I did find myself catching a whiff out of curiosity, smelling gases I could only assume spelled trouble if I lingered too long.
After a brief pause over the first vent, I made my way to the second and third vents, coming across the mother with two sons who I had met earlier at the geyser. A brief exchange ensued, as we tried to determine if maybe there were other sites we had missed in our self-guided tours. Parting ways, I peered into the other two vents and proceeded to make my way back to the road.
My determination to find the famous graffiti highway failed to waiver, however, and I hopped back into my vehicle ready to find it. A drive along Big Mine Run Road then turned into Centre Street, which left me back in the center of Centralia. Going south on Highway 61, I noticed a road to the right that was closed off.
Parking nearby, I walked up to the sign and discovered mounds and mounds of dirt as far as the eye could see and winding down a long road. Underneath and strewn across the mounds were large portions of broken road, a small glimmer at what used to be the Graffiti highway.
A popular destination when visiting Centralia, the Graffitti highway was a portion of the road that was closed in 1993 for its dangers but attracted artists who wanted to leave behind a memory. Unfortunately, the road was covered up by owners Pagnotti Enterprises, who felt that the attraction posed too much of a risk to visitors.
“We’ll bring in approximately 400 loads of material, and then we’ll level it off, and then we’ll probably plant it, and hopefully, there will be trees and grass growing there,” Vincent Guarna of Fox Coal Company told WNEP at the time in 2020. But as I strolled through the highway, I noticed hardly any natural green things sprouting from the ground.
I did, however, find some great visuals of the past that provided for great photo ops. Bright reds and blues poked out from the rubble, signalling that the highway was once heavily decorated with a variety of artwork. I picked up a piece of the debris, amazed at how sharp the color still was, and tried to picture what the road possibly looked like.
I walked along the mounds for a bit before heading back to my car, wondering why the neighbouring towns didn’t try to capitalise on the dark tourism locale.
My trip in Centralia came to a close on a small segment of road I found where graffiti artists have started to add new art. I posed with a few that caught my eye, some not for the greatest of reason (someone wanted to throw their support behind a Kanye West 2024 Presidential run.
It was the perfect way to end my time in Centralia as I made my way back to the civilization that exists in New York City.