Centralia, Pennsylvania: The Anthracite Town That Burned Away

01From Bull's Head Tavern to Borough: Centralia's Beginnings

The land had changed hands many times before anyone built on it. Native Americans sold it in 1749, and Robert Morris held it by 1793. Stephen Girard bought it in 1830. The first settlement was a tavern called the Bull's Head, built by Jonathan Faust in 1841.

The planned town came next. The Locust Mountain Coal and Iron Company bought the land in 1842. Mining engineer Alexander Rea laid out the streets and lots and named the place Centreville. Postal authorities refused the name because another Centreville already existed, and Rea suggested Centralia instead. Faust's tavern gave the place its first settlement, but Rea was the founder of the town itself.

The mines came quickly. The Locust Run and Coal Ridge mines opened in 1856, Hazeldell in 1860, Centralia in 1862 and Continental in 1863. A Lehigh Valley Railroad branch reached the town in 1865. The Borough of Centralia was chartered in February 1866, with James Dyke as its first Chief Burgess and a population of about 1,300.

02A Mining Town at Its Height

By 1890, Centralia had reached 2,761 people, its peak. That population supported seven churches, five hotels, 27 saloons, two theaters, a bank, a post office and 14 general and grocery stores.

The town's history had violence in it too. Alexander Rea was murdered on 17 October 1868 while driving his buggy from Mount Carmel to Centralia. Wikipedia attributes the killing to the Molly Maguires. Accounts of the aftermath differ slightly. One says four men were tried, convicted and hanged in 1878, while another places the trial in 1877 and the executions in March 1878 at Bloomsburg. A local legend, reported by Wikipedia, says that a priest, Father Daniel Ignatius McDermott, cursed the town in 1869. It is a legend and not a documented event.

The decline started well before the fire. Falling demand for anthracite pulled the population down from the 1890 peak to about 2,000 in 1950 and under 1,500 by 1960.

03What Happened to Centralia?

The fire began on 27 May 1962. According to David DeKok's research, the town landfill, an old strip-mine pit, was set alight as a cleanup measure. Penn State's Pennsylvania Center for the Book notes that an unnoticed 15-foot hole in a closed mine let the fire reach a coal seam, and from there it spread underground.

Gases and subsidence followed. DeKok's 1986 book Unseen Danger documented both, and the Penn State article also mentions a 1984 Hershey Medical Center study of residents' health. Estimates put the cost of extinguishing the fire at $660 million. Congress instead funded voluntary relocation, with more than $42 million provided. Sources date the bill to 1983 or 1984.

People left in waves. Centralia held about 1,000 people in 1980 and 63 in 1990. One source gives 62. In 1992 Governor Robert P. Casey declared eminent domain over the remaining properties.

04The Post Office and the Lost ZIP Code

The town's postal history is thinly documented. A local-history transcription says Jonathan Hoagland opened the first store in 1860 and became postmaster about two years later. No other source confirms this, and no source gives firm opening or closing dates for the post office. The building was demolished in 1997. In 2002 the U.S. Postal Service revoked ZIP code 17927, and mail now routes through Ashland (17921). The Washington Post, reporting in April 2003, counted 20 residents left in town.

05What Remains of Centralia Today

Centralia is an abandoned town in the legal sense as well as the physical one, though a few people still live there. The 2020 census counted five residents, making it the least-populated municipality in Pennsylvania. Only a few buildings still stand. The 2000 census had counted 21.

The legal fight over who could stay ended unevenly in the sources. One says formal eviction resumed in 2009 under Governor Rendell. Another says a lawsuit was settled in 2013, allowing the eight remaining residents to stay for life. The details differ, but both accounts point the same way. The town was emptied by a fire it never put out, and the few who remain are the last of those who stayed.