Early-day Centralia, Pennsylvania.
Centralia, Pennsylvania, is a ghost town in Columbia County caused by an underground coal mine fire that has been burning since 1962.
Before settlers came to the region, this area was a vast expanse of mountain wilderness inhabited by various Indian tribes. That changed in 1749 when the Native Americans sold the land to colonists for 500 pounds.
Reading Road in Pennsylvania about 1860.
In 1770, the area was surveyed and explored during the construction of the Reading Road, which stretched from Reading to Fort Augusta (present-day Sunbury). Today, Route 61 follows much of the historic Reading Road.
In 1793, Robert Morris, an American Revolution hero and signer of the Declaration of Independence, acquired about a third of Centralia’s valley land. However, just five years later, he declared bankruptcy, lost the property, and was sent to debtors’ prison.
In 1830, Morris’ property and other tracts were purchased by a French sea captain named Stephen Girard, who learned that the area was filled with coal deposits. However, the coal veins wouldn’t be actively worked on a large scale for years. In 1832, Johnathan Faust opened the Bull’s Head Tavern, and the settlement that grew around it was first called Bull’s Head.
In 1842, the Locust Mountain Coal and Iron Company purchased the land. Alexander Rae, a mining engineer, moved his family in and began planning a village, laying out streets and lots for development. Rae initially named the town Centreville, hoping it would become the center of commerce in the region.
The Mine Run Railroad was built in 1854 to transport coal from the valley. In 1856, the Locust Run Mine and the Coal Ridge Mine opened. More mines followed, including the Hazeldell Colliery Mine (1860), the Centralia Mine (1862), and the Continental Mine (1863). In 1865, a branch line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad was constructed to Centralia. The Lehigh and Mahanoy Railroad enabled Centralia to transport and expand its coal sales to markets in eastern Pennsylvania. That same year, when a post office was established, the town’s name changed from Centreville to Centralia because another town in Pennsylvania was already named Centreville. The town incorporated in 1866, when it had about 1,300 residents.
Centralia, Pennsylvania Railroad Station.
Meeting of Molly Maguires by Harper’s Weekly, January 1874.
During the 1860s, the Molly Maguires, an Irish-American group working to organize a mine workers’ union to improve wages and working conditions, were active in Pennsylvania. In October 1868, Alexander Rae, Centralia’s founder, was murdered in his buggy during a trip between Centralia and Mount Carmel. Three men, who were found to belong to the Molly Maguires, were eventually convicted of his death and were hanged in Bloomsburg in March 1878. As Centralia was a hotbed of Molly Maguires’ activity, other acts of violence also took place, including arson and the death of the area’s first priest.
The town’s population peaked in 1890 at 2,761, when it boasted seven churches, five hotels, 27 saloons, two theaters, a bank, a post office, and 14 general and grocery stores.
Pennsylvania Coal Miners by Strohmeyer & Wyman, 1895.
By the turn of the century, coal production had peaked in Pennsylvania, and mining declined. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, many young men left the area, and the town began to decline. After the war, a series of strikes further hindered coal production.
At about the same time, new energy sources emerged, including cheap fuel oil, reducing demand for coal. After the stock market crashed in 1929, the Lehigh Valley Coal Company closed five of its mines in the area. During the Great Depression, many desperate men turned to “bootleg mining.”
Coal production picked up with the outbreak of World War II in 1941. By 1950, the town’s population had dropped to 1,986. The same year, the Centralia Council acquired the mineral rights to the town, hoping to profit from future coal production. By 1960, the town’s population was 1,435, and though mining continued for just a few more years, all the remaining mining companies also closed.
Centralia, Pennsylvania, the 1960s
By 1962, more than 1,300 people were still living in Centralia when the city council proposed cleaning up the local landfill in time for Memorial Day festivities. To accomplish this, the landfill in an abandoned strip mine pit next to the Odd Fellows Cemetery was set on fire on May 27. Five volunteer firefighters sprayed water on the flames to keep the blaze under control, and after the landfill’s contents were thoroughly burned, they used water to douse the flames. However, two days later, on May 29, more fires were spotted and quickly extinguished. As sporadic fires continued over the following days and weeks, investigating firefighters found a hole that provided a direct pathway to the labyrinth of old coal mine tunnels on top of which Centralia was built.
Smoke seeps from the ground in Centralia, Pennsylvania, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Water was pumped directly into the mine tunnels to stop the underground burn, and the surface was covered with clay to smother the blaze. But nothing worked. Even when there were no active above-ground fires, residents could still see and smell the smoke from the burn, some of which was toxic, with unsafe carbon monoxide levels.
More extensive projects followed, including large-scale excavation to dig trenches and expose the fire so it could be extinguished. However, because so much earth needed to be moved, the project ran out of funding. A second plan involved flushing out the fire using a mixture of crushed rock and water. However, this plan failed when freezing temperatures froze the water lines. This attempt to stop the burn failed when it ran out of money. By then, the fire had spread by 700 feet.
With coal mining discontinued and the population falling, rail service ended in 1966, and the tracks were removed the following year.
Meanwhile, the underground fire continued to burn, and hundreds of people still lived in the community when locals became aware of the scale of the problem in 1979. Then, then-mayor and gas station owner John Coddington inserted a dipstick into his underground tanks to check the fuel level. When he withdrew it, it felt hot, so he lowered a thermometer into the tank and quickly discovered the gasoline was 172 degrees. By the following year, Centralia’s population had dropped to about 1,000 people.
Centralia, Pennsylvania in 1980 by Robert E. Dias, Philadelphia Evening Bulletin
Afterward, statewide attention to the fire began to increase, especially after a 12-year-old boy fell into a four-foot-wide by a 150-foot-deep sinkhole that had suddenly opened in his backyard. Though the boy was saved, the plume of hot steam billowing from the hole was tested and found to contain a lethal level of carbon monoxide.
Although the fire clearly threatened the town and its residents, Centralia’s citizens were split over the amount and type of risk it posed.
Centralia, Pennsylvania Warning Sign.
In 1983, the U.S. Congress allocated more than $42 million for relocation efforts, and most residents accepted the government’s buyout offers. Afterward, more than 1,000 people moved out of the community, and 500 structures were demolished. By 1990, only 63 people remained.
In 1992, Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey invoked eminent domain on all property in the community and condemned its buildings. In 1993, the three-quarters-of-a-mile stretch of Route 61 through Centralia was closed, and a new route around the town was established.
In 2002, the U.S. Postal Service discontinued Centralia’s zip code, and in 2009, Governor Ed Rendell began formally evicting the remaining Centralia residents. After two residents were evicted, the remaining residents mounted another legal effort to reverse the 1992 eminent domain decision, claiming the purpose of the condemnation no longer existed because the fire had moved and air quality had improved.
Locust Avenue in Centralia, Pennsylvania, was once lined with buildings, photo courtesy of Google Maps.
By 2010, only five homes and ten people remained as state officials continued to work to vacate the remaining residents and demolish what was left of the town.
However, in October 2013, the remaining seven residents settled their lawsuit, receiving $218,000 in compensation for the value of their homes, $131,500 to settle additional claims, and the right to stay in their homes for the rest of their lives. Although they were allowed to stay, they were forbidden to pass down or sell their property, and once they left, the property would be forfeited to the state and their homes demolished.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Centralia, Pennsylvania, still holds services today. Photo by BBC News Service.
Today, only a few people still live in the town, and all but a couple of buildings have been razed or reclaimed by nature. One that still stands is the beautiful Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, which sits on a hill on Center Street above the town. It is the only remaining one of five churches that once graced the community. It still holds weekly services today. Another is the Centralia Municipal Building, built in 1978 after the fire started. Here, numerous meetings determined Centralia’s ultimate fate.
The abandoned section of Route 61 is now popularly known as Graffiti Highway. Though mounds of dirt were placed at both ends of the former route, pedestrian traffic is still possible, and hundreds of visitors have painted the old cracked road. Today, it is hard to believe businesses and homes once lined this busy route.
The rest of the townsite exists only as an eerie grid of streets, driveways disappearing into vacant lots, concrete steps leading to nowhere, and buckled sidewalks. Signs warn visitors of the dangerous levels of carbon monoxide and unstable ground that could open into sinkholes.
Old Route 61 in Centralia, Pennsylvania, is better known as “Graffiti Highway” today, photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
However, four cemeteries continue to memorialize many of the former residents of this lost community.
The Odd Fellows Cemetery, near where the mine fire began in 1962, is surrounded by a wrought-iron fence and contains numerous graves. It is located on Second Street just North of the closed section of Route 61.
Saints Peter & Paul Cemetery was once associated with Saints Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church, built in 1916. The church was located on East Park Street, just North of where the mine fire began. Unfortunately, the fire destroyed the church, and it was demolished in 1986 as part of the Centralia Mine Fire Acquisition Relocation Project. Today, the lot where the church stood is overgrown with trees and shrubs. However, you can still visit the church’s cemetery.
Saints Peter & Paul Cemetery by Kelly Michals, Flickr
Saint Ignatius Cemetery, once associated with the Saint Ignatius Church, still stands on 2nd Street today at the southern end of the townsite. One of the earliest Catholic churches in Centralia, it was built in 1869. The following year, the community built a rectory. By the 1890s, church membership had grown to over 3000 people. Before the turn of the century, the church added a cemetery and convent. In 1896, they built a parochial school across from the church. By 1981, the school had to close because parents feared carbon monoxide and other gases were sickening their children. The priest also left around this time and moved to Mt. Carmel out of safety concerns. However, Mass continued at the church until June 1995. The church and its other buildings were razed in November 1997.
Another cemetery also exists at the still-standing Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church. It sits on Center Street on the hill to the north, overlooking Centralia.
Today, the fire continues to burn through what was left of the 25 million-ton coal seam beneath the town, and experts predict it could burn for another 250 years. The surface of the streets is no longer as hot as it once was because the fire has moved deeper into the earth, but smoke can still sometimes be seen creeping out of the ground.
Coal seam fires are nothing new, but Centralia’s fire is the United States’ worst and one of history’s most devastating.
©Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated October 2026.
Another of the few remaining buildings in Centralia, Pennsylvania, is the Municipal Building. Photo courtesy of Google Maps.
Also See:
Ghost Towns & Mining Camps Across America
Sources:
All That’s Interesting
Centralia, Pennsylvania
Offroaders
Ripley’s Believe It or Not
Wikipedia