I found the story of this town very interesting, and felt the need to write a little about it. Centralia was established as a mining town and was originally named Centreville until 1865. Centralia was incorporated in 1866 and it’s main business was Coal Mining until the 1960s when most of the mining companies went out of business. During that time, the town would burn their trash they would dispose in empty mining pits. The town would get a couple of volunteer firefighters to monitor the fire, and make sure it doesn’t get out of control. Well, this fire was never extinguished and had spread from the lower depths of the pit to a hole that led to an abandoned mine shaft. This fire was started in May of 1962 and burned throughout the 1960s and 1970s despite attempts to extinguish the fire. Throughout this time, locals almost forgot about the problem until 1979 when a refueling station owner lowered his wooden measuring stick into his underground tanks to measure the fuel. When he pulled the stick out, it felt extremely hot and after taking temperature readings, found the temperature of his underground gasoline to be 170 degrees Fahrenheit. Word spread quickly throughout the town of the seriousness of this problem that was thought to have been contained. State officials were notified and in 1981 a 12 year old boy was playing in his backyard The boy would have likely died if it hadn’t been for his cousin who pulled him to safety. Ironically that same day a state representative, state senator, and a mine safety director was in town doing some investigative work on the mine fire problem. Through out the next few years, people were evacuated because of safety concerns, and in 1992 Pennsylvania claimed eminent domain over the town and revoked their zipcode. Some families still stayed in the town despite having their properties condemned, and the apparent safety concerns. Since then, homes have been demolished and more recently in 2007 the Moyer residence was shredded but remained occupied until this time. You can still see smoke pillowing from the ground because of this almost 50 year old fire that was the death of this town. It is believed that the fire could burn for another 250 years with the amount of coal that is estimated to be below the town of Centralia.

This town is extremely fascinating to me, and I hope that I can one day visit this almost empty town. It’s crazy to think that just one minor misjudgment caused many people to have to leave what was once their home town.

You can see more more photos on Flickr
And Read more on Wikipedia