Abandoned - Centralia

[Music] what's up guys my name is Jake and welcome to abandoned episode 49 this is the show where we talk about some of the most interesting abandoned places in the world throughout the show I have always talked about more specific abandoned places however today I thought it might be interesting to look at perhaps one of the most famous abandoned ghost towns on the planet a place so filled with urban legends and stories that most of you might already know a little bit about it and how a fire that was started in the 1960s is still burning today this of course is the town of Centralia Pennsylvania so Centralia is located around 47 miles from Allentown and around 54 miles away from Scranton Pennsylvania the town was settled all the way back in the mid 1800s and was established as the borough of Centralia in 1866 though the town's main economic driver coal mining was found to be plentiful in the area even further back in the late 1700s a man named Robert Morris and his surveyors had discovered the region was filled with underground coal so the first two Centralia coal mines were opened in 1856 and by the end of the century over 2,700 people were living in the town as years progressed though and as the United States entered World War one a bit of the town's population had decreased due to enlistment of the miners in the war by the late 1920s the Great Depression had also taken its toll on Centralia closing five major mines and causing catastrophic economic damage with the now abandoned mines the former miners and residents on hard times had actually begun excavating coal themselves however this sort of bootleg coal extraction led to massive collapses in the abandoned mines making many of the shafts dangerous and unstable by the 1950s there were still almost 2,000 residents living in Centralia this was until the great fire alright so this is often disputed by many but one of the most concrete stories goes like this in May of 1962 City Council had sent several volunteer firefighters to clean up the city Landfill this was sort of an annual thing where in years past the landfill was successfully reduced however this year it was in a new location and the method of cleaning it up has to burn it's like you do in the 1960s the only problem was this year the landfill had been located right next to an abandoned coal mine entrance despite the firefighters knowing there were exposed shafts there they didn't think they were ones meant for coal so the burning landfill was not fully extinguished and the fire eventually made its way down into the mine another popular theory is that hot ash was dumped into the landfill through industrial trash disposal the previous day this eventually allowed the landfill to catch fire which it had done before however this time it also ignited the coal mines regardless of how it happened this fire quickly grew out of control remember this wasn't just a small shaft to the coal mines in the area were all interconnected and it was an enormous labyrinth under the town of Centralia well the town had looked into the fire and how to stop it really the lack of information and misconceptions of the era had ultimately let the fire continue many thought that if they just found a way to seal off any air from getting down into the shafts that it would just extinguish the fire however this was not the case a fire can actually derive oxygen from the earth itself allowing it to continue to burn the people living above though didn't really think anything of it nor did they really see any cause for alarm while some residents were concerned about the uncontained blaze below them others reported nausea and headaches likely caused by the fly ash barrier the city had installed in the late 60s however almost 10 years later some more serious issues began to rise literally in 1979 a gas station owner had checked the fuel level of his underground tanks however upon opening them he noticed the interior of the tanks appeared to regularly warm so when he tested the liquid temperature the reading came back as an extremely alarming 172 degrees Fahrenheit or 77 degrees Celsius for comparison the regular temperature of underground tanks is around 60 degrees Fahrenheit the underground fire had literally been cooking the crust of Centralia and then causing more direct problems in 1982 a 12 year old boy had fell into a 4 foot wide 150 foot deep sinkhole in his backyard his 14 year old cousin had luckily pulled him out just in time and both boys were fine incredibly the fire had created this and potentially other deadly surface caverns and when the sinkhole was tested by officials the hot plumes of steam pouring out of it read extremely high levels of carbon monoxide this obviously caused some alarm in the community and put a spotlight on the several-year lung problem efforts were made to stop the fire by the local government costing around 7 million dollars but to no avail soon the town was deemed as just too dangerous for people to live and this resulted in Congress approving a 42 million dollar relocation package for its inhabitants however the town was sort of split on the issue some were happy to take the money and move but some were reluctant thinking the fire wasn't really a threat at all through the 1980s over a thousand people took the government up on their offer and moved out of Centralia the town had hundreds of structures demolished leaving very few left according to the 1990 census there were now just 63 people left living there Centralia was now a ghost town too hazardous for human inhabitants two years later the state began buying back all the available land in the town and condemning the remaining abandoned structures and by 2002 the US Postal Service had discontinued Centralia sposta code seemingly removing the town's name from the map also sort of wiping a town out of further existence by the mid-2000s just 16 homes remained in Centralia until state governor ed Rendell began evicting the last few citizens and since the remaining homes have dwindled and that brings us to today the once bustling downtown of Centralia a classic American town is now nothing more than just a paved road today only five homes remain in the town now seemingly scattered around vacant land but in reality the roll left other than the homes just a church and cemeteries remain another reminder of a town that was left behind today almost 60 years later the fire is still burning beneath Centralia throughout the years there have been documented examples of steam from the underground fire making its way to the surface on cold days experts gauge the fire to be capable of burning another 40 years if not longer only a handful of people still live in the town but many more in curious locals and tourists actually visit Centralia quite often the former ruins of highway 61 remain now known as the graffiti highway literally covered with spray paint dating back to the 70s and 80s while one or two abandoned buildings remained perhaps the most interesting appeal is what isn't there the town itself a real-life example of what happens when residents are forced out of just a regular American town Centralia also provided the inspiration for the 2006 horror film Silent Hill a setting very similar to Centralia when I began researching this video I never really thought anything of Centralia I've heard about it in the media and I knew the general story behind it but now looking into it it's actually quite interesting isn't it I mean this was a small American town with a long history of coal mining only to be brought down by that very same industry one small mistake in the 1960s led to a catastrophic yet slow progression of disaster it's also kind of a good example of how the errors of the time reacted like the 1960s didn't really think anything of it they thought burning landfills was a good idea some alarm came in the 1970s in the 80s people began to take notice and everyone got their act together in the 90s and now today the town or what's left of it is a unique and fascinating showcase of what happens when a small town is quite literally wiped off the map if you liked this video and want to support more like this then please consider donating to my patreon page all monthly pledges go directly to bettering my videos like funding travel new equipments and licensing anyway guys my name is Jake follow us on Twitter Instagram and snapchat and thank you very much for watching [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: Bright Sun Films

Views: 1,338,994

Keywords: ABANDONED 49, Centralia, PA, Pennsylvania, scranton, the town, slient hill, movie, story of, abandoned town, ghost town, creepy, HD, story, documentary, history, coal mining, centralia pa 2019, centralia pa 2020, silent hill town, centralia pa movie, fire undergrond, coal mine fire, main street, creepy ghost town, centralia map, exploration, abandoned town america, graffiti highway, centrailia, 2019, 2020, 2021, brightsunfilms, allentown, 1960s, new

Id: 2QOe_oFij7E

Length: 9min 42sec (582 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 13 2019