[00:00:00] Foreign hello everyone. Welcome back to Mallory's Weird World Adventures, the podcast. I'm your host, Mallory, and I'm here to show you just how weird this world of ours really is. I have a very fun topic for you today.
[00:00:20] So while we were finishing up filming season two of Weird World Adventures on Amazon prime, which if this is your first time tuning in, make sure to go to Amazon prime and watch the first season of Weird World Adventures, which is available now. And season two is incoming very, very soon. We're almost done with it and make sure you check us
[email protected] now, while we were finishing up filming for season two of Weird World, we had a spot become available to us and we needed to get something kind of last minute that felt fit into this dystopian kind of feel.
[00:01:00] And Michael suggested the perfect place, which is Centralia, Pennsylvania.
[00:01:07] Now, some of you guys might know Centralia because it inspired the Silent Hill film adaptation. Screenwriter Roger Avery researched Centralia while he was working on the screenplay for Silent Hill, the film adaptation, but it is important to know that the movie took inspiration from Centralia. However, the original game series was not inspired by the town, but it does have that nice tie in to Centralia which we're going to talk about now. So I went on another crazy last minute road trip of Weird up to Centralia last week and it was very cool. So I'll give you a bit of the backstory first.
[00:01:48] Centralia is a near ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania. Its population declined from a thousand people in 1980 to five residents in 2020 because there's a coal mine fire that's been burning beneath the ground since 1962 there.
[00:02:07] Yes, that's pretty crazy. And it's said that it's going to burn for at least another 200 years, if not more, which is also crazy.
[00:02:17] So needless to say, all the real estate in that borough was claimed under eminent domain in 1992 and condemned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Centralia's zip code was discontinued by the Postal Service in 2002. State and local officials reached an agreement with the then seven remaining residents in 2013, allowing them to remain in Centralia until their deaths.
[00:02:45] After they passed, their rights to their houses would be taken through eminent domain.
[00:02:49] And as of 2020, as I said, only five residents remain in Centralia.
[00:02:56] So what happened with the fire?
[00:02:59] Analysts disagree actually about the specific causes of the Centralia fire.
[00:03:05] Some conclude that it started with an attempt to clean up the town Landfill in May 1962. The Centralia Borough Council hired five members of the Volunteer Fire Company to clean up the town landfill, located in an abandoned strip mine pit next to Old Fellows Cemetery just outside the limits. This had been done prior to Memorial Day. In previous years, when the landfill was in a different location.
[00:03:30] The firefighters, on May 27, 1962, set the temple on fire and let it burn for some time.
[00:03:37] Unlike the previous years, however, the fire was not fully extinguished. An unsealed opening in the pit allowed the fire to enter the labyrinth and abandoned coal mines beneath Centralia.
[00:03:48] However, other sources do claim that the fire had started the previous day when a trash hauler dumped hot ash or coal discarded from the coal burners into the open trash pit.
[00:04:00] So there's kind of some controversy over how exactly speaking started, but we know May 1962 this fire began and it began burning underneath the town in the mines in 1979.
[00:04:18] So that's.
[00:04:20] Gosh, that is. 17 years later, locals became aware of the scale of the problem when a gas station owner, then mayor John Coddington, inserted a dipstick into one of his underground tanks to check the fuel level. When he withdrew it, it seemed hot. He lowered a thermometer into the tank on a string and was shocked to discover the temperature of the Gasoline tank was 172 degrees Fahrenheit statewide. Attention to the fire then began to increase, culminating on February 1981 when a 12 year old resident fell into the sinkhole that suddenly opened beneath his feet in his grandmother's backyard. But he did save himself by grabbing onto a tree root.
[00:05:05] Although there was physical evidence of a fire, residents of Centralia were bitterly divided over the question of whether the fire posed a direct threat to their town.
[00:05:15] So this was something people weren't sure of for a long time.
[00:05:18] Nearly all of the residents accepted the government's buyout offer when in 1983, the US Congress allocated more than 42 million for the relocation efforts of the town.
[00:05:30] By 1990, census recorded that 63 people remained within the town.
[00:05:36] In 1992, the Pennsylvania governor Bob Casey, invoked eminent domain on all property in the borough, condemning all the buildings within.
[00:05:45] A subsequent legal effort by the residents to overturn that action, fail. Failed. So in 2002, the Postal Service, as I said, discontinued Centralia's zip code, which used to be 17927.
[00:06:00] And then Governor Ed Rendell began the formal eviction of the remaining Centralia residents.
[00:06:06] So only five homes remained by 2010.
[00:06:11] The Centralia mine fire has extended beneath the village of Burnsville, which is a short distance to the south and also required that to be abandoned.
[00:06:22] Goodness gracious.
[00:06:24] So the underground fire is still burning.
[00:06:28] And in 2006, it was reported that it was expected to do so for over 250 years.
[00:06:36] The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania did not renew the location contract at the end of 2005.
[00:06:41] The only indicators of the fire, which underlies some 400 acres now spreading along four fronts, are low round metal steam vents in the south of the borough.
[00:06:53] Additional smoke and steam can be seen coming from the abandoned portion of Pennsylvania Route 61, the area just behind the hilltop cemetery, and other cracks in the ground scattered around the area.
[00:07:05] Several signs warn of underground fire, unstable ground, and dangerous levels of carbon monoxide.
[00:07:12] There are still a few homes remaining standing in Centralia. Most of the abandoned buildings have actually been demolished or reclaimed by nature. So at a casual glance, the area now kind of appears to be a field with many paved streets running through it awkwardly.
[00:07:28] Some areas are being filled with new grown forest.
[00:07:32] The last remaining house on Locust Avenue was demolished in September 2007.
[00:07:37] It was notable for a period for the five chimney like support buttresses along each of the two opposite sides of the house.
[00:07:45] The house had formerly been supported by a row of adjacent buildings. Another house with similar buttresses was visible from the northern side of the cemetery just north of the burning, partially subsumed hillside.
[00:08:00] So residents John Karminsky and John Lochtess were evicted in May and July of 2009 respectively.
[00:08:09] In May 2009, the remaining residents mounted another legal effort to reverse the 1992 eminent domain claim.
[00:08:16] In 2010, only five homes remained as a state official tried to vacate the remaining residents and demolish what was left in the town.
[00:08:25] In March 2011, a federal judge refused to issue injunctions that would have stopped the condemneds for those buildings.
[00:08:34] So lots of history, people not wanting to leave their homeland, which again, is quite sad. I get it.
[00:08:41] In 2012, the Commonwealth Court ruled that the declaration of taking could not be reopened or set aside on the basis the purpose for the condemning no longer exists.
[00:08:52] Seven people, including the Borough council president, had filed a suit claiming that condemning the buildings was no longer needed because the underground fire had moved and the air quality in the borough was the same as in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
[00:09:06] So in October 2013, the remaining residents settled their lawsuit. They received $218,000 in compensation for the value of their homes, along with $131,500 to settle additional claims and the right to stay in their homes for the rest of their lives.
[00:09:24] So something that's kind of cool. That used to be in Centralia, which I think they, they got rid of because they didn't want people to just come for that, was that there was a graffiti highway and it was mostly buried by several hundred access denial berms. So it was kind of hidden out there and has since been paved over.
[00:09:49] Route 61 was repaired several times until it was closed. That's that road smoke and steam caused extensive cracking in the pavement which led to frequent closures. The current route was formally a detour around the damaged portion of the repairs and became a permanent route. In 1993.
[00:10:07] The damaged portion of 61 was abandoned and became known as the graffiti highway.
[00:10:12] Access burns were placed at both ends of the former route, effectively blocking off the area permanently to vehicle traffic.
[00:10:19] Pedestrian traffic was still possible due to small openings about 2ft wide on the northern and southern terminus of the stretch of the abandoned road.
[00:10:29] But in April 2020, amidst the early COVID pandemic, the property's current owners made the decision to cover over the graffiti highway section to kind of keep people from going out there and graffiti more. Several hundred mounds of dirt were laid over the area, thus ending the decades long fascination with the desolate slave stretch of road.
[00:10:52] Google Maps overhead satellite view imagery copyright dated 2023 shows the former graffiti highway almost entirely buried under hundreds of access denial berms.
[00:11:05] So what's interesting about this town, I think what draws people to it is the town's residents and former residents decided to open a time capsule buried in 1966, a couple of years earlier than planned, after someone had attempted to unearth and steal the capsule in May 2014.
[00:11:22] The capsule was not scheduled to be open until 2016, but items were found in the footlocker sized capsule, which had been inundated with about 12 inches of water, including a miner's helmet, a miner's lamp, some coal, a bible, local souvenirs, and a pair of bloomers signed by the men of Centralia.
[00:11:45] So what is in Centralia today?
[00:11:49] As I kind of already covered, there's lots of mountainous hillsides, there's lots of trees and greenery. There are many roads that are kind of falling into heavy disrepair.
[00:12:03] And yet there's a Ukrainian Catholic church, the assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary, and it remains in use.
[00:12:12] It holds weekly services on Sundays and attracts worshippers from surrounding towns, including people who were once residents of the town and are no longer living there. It has not yet been directly affected by the fire.
[00:12:24] A survey found that there was solid rock, not coal, under the church. So it's not in danger of collapse. If you go to view the town, it's not to drive by it because it is up one of those kind of hard to drive roads. But they definitely do not want people coming on property and doing anything on the property. So no trespassing pleas of the church. The town's four cemeteries, including one on the hilltop which has smoke rising around and out of it, are actually maintained and in good condition.
[00:12:56] St. Mary's Orthodox Cemetery still stands on the northern edge of Centralia. And St. Peter and Paul Church and Cemetery, St. Ignatius Cemetery, and the Odds Fellows Cemetery all stand as well on the southern side.
[00:13:11] And as I mentioned, screenwriter Roger Avery actually researched Centurio while working on the screenplay for Silent Hill, the film adaptation.
[00:13:19] So it took some of its inspiration from there.
[00:13:23] So I feel like a lot of people want to come up and see Centralia because it is Silent Hill in real life. It is kind of that embodiment, that physical embodiment of a beloved game series and franchise.
[00:13:37] And it's very cool. But again, when you go, you have to, you know, visit at your own risk. It is a pretty abandoned place. There's not many people there.
[00:13:48] There were actually a lot of people working in the area when I was there, working on the roadsides or out in the mountains.
[00:13:56] But, you know, of course, you want to be respectful. Any of the properties that do still exist there, you know, there's no trespassing. But if you get to kind of drive around through some of the roads, it's very eerie to see the old fences, the old stretches of roads, the old plots and lands that clearly used to have things there that are no more.
[00:14:22] And I had this, my favorite little stretch that I liked to drive through that was like a big square and the connecting road in the center of it. Someone actually graffitied on the road, welcome to Silent Hill.
[00:14:37] And that was very cool because it made for an epic shot.
[00:14:41] And if you kind of drive around the mountainside at the right time of year, near the smoke vents, you might get to see some of the smoke rising off the mountains and the grounds from the mine fire.
[00:14:56] The town leading up to it is very interesting. It's a very cute small town. It looks very New Englandy, and it has a lot of action. There's a lot of people there just 5, 10 minutes up from Silent Hill, from Centralia.
[00:15:12] And you kind of move up the hill. You start going up the mountainside, and you very quickly get to Centralia. And one of the first things you'll pass on the left is the cemetery, they only want people going in, you know, if they're mourners or have loved ones that are buried there. So be respectful. But it's very quiet, very peaceful and a great place to go visit your loved one if they're buried there because it's so calm and you won't be bothered by anybody.
[00:15:48] And then you keep going. There's one major kind of four way stop there in the town that has.
[00:15:56] If you go to the right, if you're coming out from the neighboring towns, you'll get to see the smoke vents and kind of drive through the eerie mountainous area where the fire is taking place underground.
[00:16:13] Or you can keep going up and move out of Centralia. But off, off to the left, to the west, there are a lot of old roads for the abandoned plots.
[00:16:28] And it was just, it was a very cool to see a piece of, of this world that felt so dystopian. That's right there, kind of in the middle of civilization. There's towns surrounding it on every side. People are driving through it regularly.
[00:16:45] But you know, it's this slice of like life that has just quietly sat there that's being reclaimed by nature.
[00:16:58] And it's really interesting to see. The old train tracks are kind of there and paved over and it makes for some beautiful pictures.
[00:17:07] And one of my favorite spots was near that, that Silent Hill graffiti where there was an old stone fence kind of around a property with just these very willowy trees.
[00:17:22] And it just, it looked like something out of a psychological thriller of some kind. So the environment really does fit that inspiration for Silent Hill. And I'm very glad that I got to go experience that, even if just for a short time for weird world adventures.
[00:17:43] And I've always, I've always just kind of loved abandoned places. I don't know, for me, I like abandoned buildings, I like exploring, doing the urban exploration when it's. When it's legal, when you're allowed to do it.
[00:17:57] And I've never quite seen anything like Centralia.
[00:18:03] A whole town that has been, you know, kind of demolished, that still just has these little hints of what used to be there. I thought it was worth the visit. A lot of people say it's not worth it to go up there because there's nothing there. But I found it a really interesting landscape, unlike anything I've seen before.
[00:18:24] And it is important to note that if you do go, you stay on the actual paved roads because as I mentioned before, there are sinkholes. Lynn is caving in at certain spots. It's not a very safe place to be with the fire burning to go off the roads. So just stay where it's safe, follow the roads, and, you know, don't actually graffiti or bother anybody. Just enjoy the sights and the creepy, eerie mist that come at nighttime in Centralia, Pennsylvania. And make sure you tune into Weird World Adventures Season 2, where you can see this segment for yourself.
[00:19:07] And until next time, everybody stay weird.
