Photos and comments by:
John J. Lawless & Joel B. Reese

A view facing south of what was once the populated Locust St.

This place is truly amazing; it is such a serene place. It makes you wonder why it is still considered “inhabitable” there are wildlife, plants; it is not the barren wasteland that it has been propagated into. I’m sure it was much worse at one time, but now it is so peaceful, reminiscent of the more tranquil times. I would encourage anyone that can see this part of history to do so. It makes you wonder about all the “conspiracy” theories on why the government spent $42 million to move people in order to strip mine the place for billions worth of coal. The fire is no longer under the borough. The smoke from the hills behind the houses are just vent holes that go deep inside the earth. Maybe there is a danger, maybe there is not, but we will probably never know until the last steadfast resident of Centralia is gone. It will be interesting to see what’s in that time capsule in 2016. I can understand why people decided to stay there, no police, no noise, just peaceful living. If you do visit I hope that you have the chance to talk to someone about the stories less known of the area such as the ones I learned from the man from the VFW. If you do park to see the damaged highway, park near the cemetery on the north side, people will honk at you as they go by and scream out “don’t go down there” but they are probably just the locals that “don’t take kindly to strangers” anyone that we had a chance to talk to face to face in this area was very friendly.

The Veterans memorial is topped with a re-creation of the liberty bell

A picture of a row of stones that is Mr. Mitchell’s family (the man from the VFW) Edward Michael (third stone from the left) is his father.

Above, the cross that is all black (as explained above by the man from the VFW) is at the Cenetary behind the Russian Orthodox church.  The one with the white cross is at the St. Ignatius cemetery.
 

Two more stories I would like told, one is of a man who died in a 1948 crash of a DC-6 near Centralia, and one of a probably common misread military marker.  These two stories we found particularly interesting:

First story        

Pictured to the right:

The story as told by the man from the VFW:  This man, George Van Sebo died in a plane crash in 1948, all of those who died had family come to claim the bodies except for this man.  Officials were able to contact the family, but nobody ever came to claim him to give him a proper burial.  They municipalities voted on what to do, and a proper burial with a proper marking was done to honor this man.
 
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,779863,00.html
Time magazine article from June 28, 1948 detailing plane crash
 
I found this story also interesting because it related to a similar even in my family in the 1940’s regarding a name change.

Pictured to the right:

This piece of history was also told to us by the man from the VFW.

On this military stone, that reads Joseph John Shillaka Shilpetski, no one would know the following unless they were a relative or got a chance to talk to someone like the man from the VFW. This man’s original name was Joseph John Shilpetski. His wife did not like that name and had him change it to Joseph John Shill. The marker is actually misprinted and “Joseph John Shillaka Shilpetski” is actually supposed to be “Joseph John Shill AKA Shilpetski” I found this story very interesting as almost everyone that sees this stone would not know this and think his name was Shillaka. My grandfather Edmund Arcykiewicz, who also served in WWII changed his name to Edmund Archer at the request of his wife, my grandmother, from what I understand that was a common thing that Russian and Polish Americans did in the 1940-50s.

A steadfast resident creates a display for Memorial Day 2007

Left: This burnt out tree stump was smoking a lot, but no matter how many pictures I took we could not get the smoke, definatley worth looking for, just don’t get too close or you will get a mouth/lung full of the smoke… We found this one interesting because it appears to be burnt from the roots up, as many others but this one you can see down the hole

Left: A Mine vent in the middle of the cemetery, possibly this and the many others in the area are the air supply for the fire that still burns beneath

A view of the Russian Orthodox church that is on the hill (to visit head north on 61, take your first left past the municipal building and then your first right, the church will be on your left) They still have services once a month.

Right, this is the owner of the Visintainers Motel in Mt. Carmel PA, he will enlighten you with stories of his cousin, Mother Pauline Visintainer who was canonized in 2002, and of his friend General James Gavin (WWII)

John Lawless and the Centralia bench near the Veterans Memorial

More views of the smoking cracks along the closed section of rt. 61

Right, Another Picture of the damaged highway, the is a lot of litter in these cracks…

Byrnsville wash house where coal workers went to clean up before returning home after a day at work.

Above and below: This on is actually on the opposite side of the highway, but it appears to be an air quality monitoring & a weather station, probably to monitor for toxic gas emissions. There are cameras around here, so be careful.