This Pennsylvania town was once an ordinary slice of Americana, but these days, the ghostly
ruins of the so-called 'real Silent Hill' has no zip code, no stores, and almost no
people.
Here's the story of Centralia, the town that sits atop an underground inferno that could
rage for centuries.
Before Centralia became a living horror movie, it was just an ordinary U.S. town.
The land was purchased from local indigenous tribes in 1749, and the town grew over the
next few centuries.
It was built on the mining industry and eventually died due to the mining industry.
Though the town was never a bustling metropolis, it was a great place to mine coal, and that
made it a fairly happy home for numerous miners and their families.
At Centralia's peak in 1890, the town had a population of almost 3,000.
Going into the 20th century, as coal's popularity started to slide, Centralia lost many residents.
By 1962, it had a population of about 1,400.
Despite Centralia's economic struggles, the locals still had a lot of hometown pride,
so they marched forward...unaware that, on the eve of a great celebration, everything
was about to go up in flames.
Literally.
Centralia had a large veteran population, so the annual Memorial Day celebration was
a big deal.
In May of 1962, however, the town ran into an issue while planning for the parade.
Much of the parade route smelled like rotten trash, and the town had rats everywhere.
One cause of this problem was the fact that Centralia had many unregulated dumps in abandoned
coal pits.
In order to take care of the odors, Centralia's city council allegedly agreed to set one of
the giant landfills on fire.
That, of course, was totally illegal, and thus not officially recorded on the council's
minutes.
Centralia historian David Dekok concluded that it was this fire that started the infamous
subterranean blaze.
Although Centralia's firefighters were allegedly on site to manage what was supposed to be
a routine, controlled burn, the fire ended up creeping downward faster than they expected,
finding its new home in the intricate maze of old mining tunnels.
While author Dekok's theory regarding the illegal garbage fire causing Centralia's woes
is the most accepted, it's not settled fact.
Some have argued that the trash fire was accidental, rather than being intentional, and caused
by a garbage man dumping trash with hot embers into the landfill.
Others suspect that an old mine fire might've been burning away beneath Centralia all this
time, and that in 1962 it merely got rekindled.
Whereas Dekok's argument was heavily researched, these alternate theories have no evidence
to support them, and are considered anecdotal at best.
Firefighters poured water on the problem, but new flames kept sparking up.
A drilling project proved unsuccessful.
Digging a trench was fruitless.
Solutions like clay, ash, or rocks did nothing.
The problem was two-fold: first, Centralia had many "bootleg" mine shafts underneath
it, giving the fire countless paths to choose from with many oxygen sources.
The second problem was money.
While the underground fire problem could have been solved for about $50,000, the town's
budget for the issue didn't cover the state and federal demand that half the cost come
from the county.
So, instead, the fire was covered up.
As the grounds beneath Centralia reached unholy temperatures, life went on.
Months passed, turned into years, and became decades.
It wasn't until 1979, 15 years later, that the problem became widely apparent.
That's when Mayor John Coddington, upon checking the fuel levels of his gas station's underground
tanks, discovered that the gasoline was boiling away at 172 degrees Fahrenheit.
In 1981, a boy named Todd Domboksi investigated some smoke, when, out of nowhere, the ground
suddenly ripped open beneath him.
The boy dropped three feet down but survived thanks to his desperate grip on a miraculously
well-placed tree root, and the help of his cousin.
"Eventually it attracted all the major news media in the country and the world, really."
The Centralia apocalypse grew only more apocalyptic from there.
Houses tilted like mad.
Lethal carbon monoxide gases spewed into people's basements.
Sink holes opened up all over the woods and streets without warning.
It's pretty hard to leave your home behind forever, even if the warning signs are red
hot.
By 1981, some Centralia residents still refused to leave their homes, falling prey to conspiracy
theories about how the fire beneath them was an attempt by coal companies to steal their
land.
Some refused to install gas detection machines, even as their neighbors were sickened by the
lethal gas.
Centralia became fractured both physically and socially, with a fervent battle waged
between the "cold-side" Centralians, who were largely unaffected, and the "hot-side" Centralians,
who were far more concerned about a mine fire directly beneath them.
Question: after decades of inaction, debate, and horror stories, how was it possible for
the U.S. Congress to fix a hellish fire burning beneath an American town?
Answer: They didn't.
In 1982, they just booted everyone out, by approving a budget of $42 million and paying
everyone to leave.
The exile process was voluntary, but most people found it easier to leave after getting
paid.
Every time a family shipped out, the property was bulldozed.
"And that was the end of it.
They chased everybody out because people were getting gas in their basement from the fire."
By the early nineties, most of the original Centralians were long gone, but there were
holdouts.
Most of them were more forcibly relocated by Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey, through
a declaration of eminent domain.
A few die-hards dug their feet in, leading to decades of legal battles.
It took until 2002 for Centralia to become a true ghost town, when its zip code was revoked.
The sheer length of time that Centralia's fire problems went untreated, and the complexity
of the situation, with that whole maze of old mining tunnels, eventually made the issue
too expensive to fix.
The Centralia fire may burn for another 250 years, thanks to the plethora of coal down
there.
Now that the town has been mostly abandoned, everybody's done pumping water down there,
and nobody's expecting a miracle.
There are still people living in Centralia.
Not many, it's believed to be six or eight, at most, but they're around.
These dedicated Centralians spent decades battling for their homes, leading to a 2013
court decision that allowed them to stay, provided that their properties went back to
the government upon their deaths.
It's hard to pinpoint why these folks became so dedicated to living in a toxic place with
no mailing addresses, no police department, and graffiti-covered streets.
Nevertheless, it's what they want, and they fought for it.
One building that has held up remarkably well is Centralia's Ukrainian Catholic Church,
a beacon of strength to the former Centralians who still visit.
"This church, this parish, serves as a focal point for the people who were dispersed."
Drilling has shown that the foundation was built on solid rock rather than coal, so it'll
probably keep standing for a long time.
The town's eerie fate has inspired many a horror author.
The ghost town influenced the comic book Carbon Knight, as well as novels by Dean Koontz,
Jennifer Finney Boylan, and Lauren Wolk.
The most famous fictional property inspired by Centralia is the Silent Hill movie, based
on the popular horror game franchise.
The movie takes place in a town abandoned due to a decades-old coal seam fire.
Centralia has also become a tourist hub.
Plenty of visitors flock to see the smoldering remains of this lost U.S. village, as gashes
spew smoke, cemeteries get more overgrown, and all signs of human society become increasingly
rusted out.
Visitors should be careful, however.
For one, remember those sinkholes!
Two, don't breathe the gases.
Three, respect the privacy of those who still call Centralia home by not trespassing on
their property.
By 1966, Centralia's underground fire had already been burning for a few years, but
nobody had any idea just how bad it would get.
So the Centralia American Legion celebrated the town's centennial by burying a time capsule
near the St. Ignatius Cemetery.
The goal was to open it fifty years later, in 2016, to commemorate Centralia's 150th
anniversary.
Good news: the time capsule was uninjured by the fire!
Bad news: May of 2014, two years before the capsule was set to be opened, some vandals
tampered with the capsule.
This forced an early reveal, just to make sure nothing had been stolen.
While many of the items were moldy, others were still well-preserved, and these relics
were given back to the families who donated.
In the end, the fate of the time capsule is, perhaps, a perfect embodiment of this town's
unfortunate legacy.
Centralia may have been wiped away from the present and vandalized but the history book
never forgets.
While the old Centralia may be gone, its bizarre fate will always be remembered.
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