The Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike

Pennsylvania is full of creepy, forgotten places. Relics of bygone eras in technology, hospitals replaced by better care, and architecture that has outlived its usefulness. 

Home to a world of wild abandonment. 

In Philadelphia alone, the Divine Lorraine, Eastern State Penitentiary, and numerous vacant piers and power stations, we are enamored not just with our past, but what happens to our past when Mother Nature reclaims her own. 

Beyond the city to Lynnewood Hall and Pennhurst Asylum, we are a region lost between history and modernity, between the foreboding fortresses of 12th Century Europe and the tech campuses of the West Coast.

We preserve what we can. But across the state, more prized than tours of Society Hill by many, is the sullen macabre of the insignificant towns and highways lost to time and progress. Centralia, PA, once a coal town that housed 1000 residents has dwindled to 10 because of a coal fire that began in 1962. 

Aside from a few houses inhabited by those who refuse to leave, the town is now little more than faded street signs, avenues once lined with modest row houses, and sidewalk staircases leading to wild meadows.

Not far, Concrete City in Nanticoke, PA was an experimental community built for employees of a railroad's coal division in 1911. Because of mold problems caused by its exclusively concrete construction, the Glen Alden Coal Company abandoned the property in 1924, finding it too costly to demolish more than one of the city's homes. The rest remain to this day.

These are the things that fascinate me. The inspiration for scary movies and the monsters I still find under my bed.

This weekend I went to Breezewood, PA, which is little more than a truck stop for the intersection of I-70 and I-76. But past souvenir shops and a few fast food restaurants, just beyond a quaint church and over a hill is the entrance to one of Pennsylvania's most coveted sites for those who wish to explore the bizarre.

In 1968, 13 miles of the Pennsylvania Turnpike were expanded and relocated, replacing the Sidling Hill Tunnel and Rays Hill Tunnel with a portion of what is now I-76 to accommodate more traffic. But the highways, and the tunnels, remain.

Today the abandoned turnpike exists as a "ride at your own risk" bike trail, maintained by the Friends of the Bike 2 Pike which have been working with Bedford County to turn it into an official bike trail. 

But if you're adventurous, see it now, and bring a head lamp. From the entrance to the first tunnel, you can see the end, but it's dark, damp, and the tunnel's echo is spine tingling. On a nice day you may find other bikers, their lamps riding towards you, followed by a polite "hello" from a face you can't see.

The second tunnel, however, truly is terrifying. From its entrance, you can't see the other side, only a faint light from it. When you reach the middle there is an absolute nothingness, both literal and figurative. You'll hear the sound of water echoing around you, inadvertently manmade falls leaking into the cave. 

Wear headgear and do not stop pedaling. 

If you make it back with your nerves in tact, Gravity Hill is just twenty miles west. A purported anomaly where cars allegedly roll uphill. Likely just an optical illusion, after an afternoon through two abandoned tunnels, an evening in the Pennsylvania Wilds may be scary enough on its own. Until you put your car in neutral and begin to climb a mountain.

Burnt Bricks

What happens when the earth beneath the ground catches fire and an entire town is forced to evacuate? You get the loose inspiration for the 1991 comedy, Nothing But Trouble: Centralia, PA.

Former State Highway 61 was rerouted when it began to succumb to the pressure below ground.

In 1962 a fire was started in the landfill of this Columbia County coal mining town, igniting an exposed anthracite coal vein and the earth beneath the town. As repeated attempts to extinguish the fire failed, the ground throughout the town of 1100 continued to smoke.

Trees line a street once lined with row homes.

Concern for the potential danger culminated in the late 70s and early 80s. An underground gas tank was found to be 172 degrees. A couple years later a 12 year old was nearly killed after the ground open up beneath him exposing a 150 foot deep sinkhole filled with carbon monoxide. He managed to hang to a tree root before his cousin pulled him to safety.

A stone wall along Park Street is lined with staircases leading up to what were once homes.

Domestic trees grow wild, tearing apart the manufactured remains of this abandoned town.

These incidents drew national attention and in 1984 U.S. Congress provided $42 million to relocate all residents to nearby towns. While the current census shows that seven residents remain, legally all remaining properties are condemned and as of 2009, all remaining residents have been formally evicted.

Centralia's South Hill shows the most obvious signs of the underground fire. The smoking ground is hot to the touch, releasing toxic carbon monoxide.

A lone staircase on Centralia's South Hill.

Besides the few hold outs on the town's small grid, signs of a once thriving small town can be found throughout Centralia's footprint. Trees have taken over sidewalks, faded stop signs mark intersections, and fire hydrants peek out above the overgrowth. The most significant sign of its former life is perhaps the stone wall with staircases marking the row homes that once lined Park Street.

Modern wind farms like the one west of Centralia can be found all around the region, perhaps signifying a new era in Pennsylvania power.

The only remaining street sign in Centralia is at the corner of Locust Avenue and Park Street.

State Route 61 takes you into Centralia. A bypass has been constructed around the original divided highway. Having succumbed to the earth settling into the burning coal mine, scarred with cracks and sink holes, highway 61 looks like it was destroyed by an earthquake. Smoke billows from its large crevasses where graffiti aptly tags it the "Highway to Hell".

In a small park at Locust and Park, a stone wall and time capsule marker are maintained.

Along Locust Avenue, or Highway 61, a stone wall is maintained surrounding a time capsule to be opened in 2016.

Centralia's blocks are marked with rows and rows of concrete and stone foundations, domestic hedges, spring flowers, and large trees that once divided lawns. At the hill on the south side of town is the heart of the underground fire. Smoke pours from vent pipes and cracks in the ground. Hot to the touch, the polluted air makes the area inhospitable to any sign of life but a bright green moss that seems to thrive in the acrid stench.

The Centralia Municipal Building houses emergency services supported by volunteers from neighboring towns.

Servicing the lone residents who have stayed in their homes, emergency services are provided by volunteers from neighboring towns, using the former municipal building to house an ambulance and fire truck. Atop the surrounding landscape are a strip mined mountain top to the west and modern windmills to the east; Centralia's forgotten contribution to powering America's early industry wedged in a small valley may continue to burn for the next 1000 years.

On the hill to the north opposite the smoke and poisonous gas, a small church watches over the few residents who choose not to leave Centralia and their homes.