The story
Centralia is America's best-known modern ghost town: a Pennsylvania coal borough condemned because of an underground mine fire that has been burning since 1962 and may burn for another two centuries.
The fire started at the town dump and spread into the abandoned anthracite tunnels under the streets. For years residents argued about how dangerous it really was. The argument ended in 1981, when a steaming sinkhole opened under a twelve-year-old boy in a backyard — he was pulled out by his cousin — and carbon-monoxide readings in basements did the rest. Congress funded a buyout in 1984, most residents took it, and Pennsylvania condemned the remaining properties in 1992. The ZIP code was retired in 2002.
A handful of residents fought the eviction and won the right to stay for life. Around them is a street grid with almost no houses: paved roads to nowhere, four cemeteries, one church on the hill, and vents of warm air in winter where the fire runs close to the surface.
What remains today
The empty street grid, four cemeteries, the hilltop Ukrainian Catholic church, and a few occupied homes. The graffiti-covered stretch of old Route 61 was buried under dirt in 2020.
From the archives
Centralia turns up on 68,038 digitized newspaper pages from Pennsylvania — read them free in the Library of Congress's Chronicling America collection.
Source: Library of Congress digital collections.
Questions from the field
- Is the Centralia fire still burning?
- Yes — it has burned since 1962 and studies estimate enough coal to continue for two centuries or more. Steam is most visible on cold mornings.
- Can you visit the Graffiti Highway?
- No — the famous painted stretch of old Route 61 was buried under dirt by its owner in 2020 to end the crowds. The town's public roads remain drivable.
From the field
The most valuable part of this record is the part only visitors can write.
Stamp your passport
Check in at Centralia — GPS-verified visits earn an inked stamp.
File a field report
Road conditions, what's still standing, what's gone — your report joins the record.
Add photographs
Credited, dated, and preserved as part of Centralia's permanent record.
No field reports yet — sign in to file the first.
Primary sources for this record
- — USGS GNIS feature 1171508
- — PA DEP — Centralia mine fire records
- — Columbia County / federal buyout records (1984)