Behind the Book
Centralia, PA is not a place you soon forget, and ever since I drove through this town fifteen years ago, I have not been able to put it out of my mind. I have lived in Pennsylvania my entire life, and yet I had not heard of this travesty. I knew one day I would write about it, and the time has come with Dirty Blonde. As I was researching, I considered what it would be like to grow up in Centralia, and the character Cate Fante grew from that.
Centralia was a coal-mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania and was barely locally known, despite its horrendous underground mine fire. By way of background, Centralia and the surrounding Appalachian towns were one of the few places in the country that anthracite coal, which is especially hard, could be found. Anthracite began being mined in Centralia in the 1800s, so that by the 1900s, the town sat atop a beehive of mines, exploited by different companies and poachers. The mine fire that would eventually ruin Centralia started in 1962, in the landfill near St. Ignatius church, school, and cemetery. The Borough Council cleaned up for Memorial Day by burning the trash in the landfill, but unfortunately, a coal mine lay beneath. Flames must have fallen into the mine and set fire to the coal, and over the next several decades, state and federal governments lost chance after chance to put out the fire when it was still possible to do so. It rages out of control, even today, leading Centralia to be called "the poor man's Dante's Inferno."
Although I researched Centralia, nothing could compare to actually walking among the ruins of the town, seeing the sulfurous steam rising from cracks in the ground, and feeling the heat of the pavement despite the fact I visited in the middle of winter. I've included one picture from my visit in this newsletter, but my site, www.scottoline.com, has tons more pictures, and some eerie before and after shots.