Free Republic

An abandoned stretch of roadway that snakes through a mountainous region of Pennsylvania known as "Graffiti Highway" is now getting covered in dirt after a reported spike in crowds during the coronavirus pandemic. Pennsylvania State Route 61 has been closed since 1993 due to damage from an underground mine fire in the nearby town of Centralia, about 60 miles northeast of the state capital of Harrisburg. The pavement on the roadway eventually was covered with graffiti, which then became its own tourist attraction. In recent weeks, though, as the coronavirus pandemic has swept the nation, closing schools and forcing people...

SEATTLE -- The saying, "time heals all wounds" is familiar to most, and for two soldiers and their two sons, it rings true. It's important that a man understands his father so he can better understand himself. And when the fathers are gone, we cling to things -- belongings and symbols -- that show what they stood for and who they were. In Centralia, Kim McDougal has learned new things about his father after finding a unique package. Herb McDougal is 88-years old. He lives in a retirement home and suffers from Friedreich's ataxia, which makes it difficult for him...

After 50 years, fire still burns under Pa. town (A motorist in 2004 drives among the smoldering remains of land near Route 61 in Centralia, Pa. AP file photo) Fifty years ago Sunday, a fire at the town dump ignited an exposed coal seam, setting off a chain of events that eventually led to the demolition of nearly every building in Centralia — a whole community of 1,400 simply gone. All these decades later, the Centralia fire still burns. It also maintains its grip on the popular imagination, drawing visitors from around the world who come to gawk at twisted,...

Fifty years ago on Sunday, a fire at the town dump ignited an exposed coal seam and still burns today. It set off a chain of events that eventually led to the demolition of nearly every building in Centralia -- a whole community of 1,400 simply gone. After a contentious battle over the future of the town, the side that wanted to evacuate won out. By the end of the 1980s, more than 1,000 people had moved and 500 structures were demolished under a $42 million federal relocation program. But some holdouts refused to go -- even after their houses...

America's largest coal mine fire is the marquee for government ineffectiveness and environmental activism's false pretense. Centralia, PA is home to America's largest coal mine fire -- still burning today since May of 1962. Forty-nine years of government folly, environmentalist demonization, and media sensationalism have managed to fan the flames under Centralia, escalating the costs to end this ecological disaster from under $100,000 in the early sixties to over $600 million today. Bureaucratic half-measures started in the 60's with a planned town dump in an old mine pit.  Regulations required that any openings to the mine be properly sealed with...

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Residents of a central Pennsylvania coal town decimated by a mine fire have gone to federal court to try to prevent state officials from evicting them....

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — The few remaining residents of a Pennsylvania coal town decimated by a 48-year-old underground mine fire claim in court papers that a "massive fraud" is being perpetrated by parties seeking to grab the mineral rights to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of anthracite coal. In a filing late Monday, four property owners and the borough of Centralia asked a state appeals court to block Pennsylvania officials from seizing their homes. The state condemned the homes in the early 1990s but only recently moved to oust the remaining holdouts. The state's attorney on Tuesday dismissed the residents'...

Standing before the wreckage of his bulldozed home, John Lokitis Jr. felt sick to his stomach, certain that a terrible mistake had been made. He'd fought for years to stay in the house. It was one of the few left standing in the moonscape of Centralia, a once-proud coal town whose population fled an underground mine fire that began in 1962 and continues to burn. But the state had ordered Lokitis to vacate, leaving the fourth-generation Centralian little choice but to say goodbye - to the house, and to what's left of the town he loved. "I never had any...

There is a small town in Pennsylvania called Ashland where Route 61's northbound traffic is temporarily branched onto a short detour. Exactly what the detour is circumventing is not immediately clear to travelers, however few passers-by pay it any mind… a detour is nothing unusual. But anyone who ignores the detour and ventures along the original route 61 highway will soon encounter an abrupt and unexplained road closure. Beyond it lies a town filled with overgrown streets, smoldering earth, and ominous warning signs. It is the remains of the borough of Centralia. Centralia, Pennsylvania was never a particularly large community,...

AR RAMADI, Iraq (Oct. 21, 2005) -- Many young men and women harbor dreams of serving their country and enlisting in the Marine Corps. Joe Bier from Centralia, Wash., is following that dream. Corporal Bier, a 21-year-old machine gunner, is on his first tour in Iraq and looks back on his decision to enlist with pride. “(Joining the Marine Corps) was something I wanted to do for a long time,” he said. “If I didn’t do it when I did, I would have never joined and regretted it for the rest of my life.” Becoming an infantryman and deploying to...

Sunken Fires Menace Land and Climate January 15, 2002 Fires are burning in thousands of underground coal seams from Pennsylvania to Mongolia, releasing toxic gases, adding millions of tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and baking the earth until vegetation shrivels and the land sinks. Scientists and government agencies are starting to use heat-sensing satellites to map the fires and try new ways to extinguish them. But in many instances -- particularly in Asia -- they are so widespread and stubborn that miners simply work around the flames. There is geological evidence that grassland and forest fires, lightning...