(Lead photo: Associated Press/Jimmy May) It seems that nobody can really come to a consensus on when the Centraila Coal Mine Fire actually started. Was it part of a garbage burn? Was it spontaneous combustion? Whatever the case, it was apparent by the end of the summer of 1962 that something was burning deep within the ground of the town. Whatever had started the fire was of little importance. What was important was that underneath Centralia was a coal mine fire, and to this day it still burns. It will probably burn for another century at least, maybe even longer. The town is condemned, the state invoking eminent domain in 1992. Seven residents remain, and once they pass on, their properties will also fall under eminent domain and will disappear, much like the rest of the town, traceable only by smoke wisps that erupt from cracks in the ground, carved up from years of coal mining.
Excepting those few remaining houses, a cemetery, a church, and those smoke trails and sunken pits that threaten to swallow up whatever is nearby…like a 12-year-old kid nearly experienced in 1981…the most prominent reminder that there was once a town located in the middle of Columbia County is the abandoned stretch of PA Route 61 that was cut off in 1993. What had been the detour became a re-route of PA Route 61 and for years, the abandoned section was a sort of urban museum of sorts. Known as “Graffiti Highway”, and owned by Pagnotti Enterprises, the tagged section of asphalt is now being buried. The official reasoning? COVID-19…apparently during the shelter-at-home phase of the pandemic, hundreds of visitors congregated at the site. In reality? Besides already being posted for trespassing, Graffiti Highway was a thorn in Pagnotti Enterprises’ side, with the risk of liability increasing with each visitor and each off-roader running up and down the asphalt.
Are they just stupid…paving the highway is like erasing a blackboard, it just makes a fresh place to trash. I can hear the “rattle cans” now.
Repaving? Looks like it’s being covered with dirt. Kind’a hard to paint dirt.
Yep, they covered it in dirt. I always thought that the road would just collapse into the big fire void that is underneath it. It is private property posted with no trespassing signs, but the state police are located at the other end of the county and hesitate to enforce it. Somehow it became a party hang-out for out of towners thinking they can do whatever they want without the law and consequences. I guess the party’s over. Yes the fire started from people burning trash in the local mine stripping pit where a coal seam was exposed. When as a kid we would drive through there at night you could see the red glow and the smoke and steam coming out of the road and the ground next to it. It was said that the road may collapse so it was re-routed around it. I wouldn’t want to be one of the tri-axle drivers taking 40 ton loads of dirt in there knowing you could be swallowed into the abyss at any moment.