The Bus Blog. Adventures in geocaching.
Saturday, May 18, 2013 - CENTRALIA
The Bus Caching Crew took a road trip to the lost town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. The town became infamous as the result of an underground mine fire that spread beneath the town and forced it's near total abandonment. Today only a handful of residents remain and most of the structures have been razed. What remains is a grid of empty and overgrown streets, a few houses, a church and the municipal building housing the Police and Fire Departments. Properties were claimed under Eminent Domain by Pennsylvania in 1992 and the town's zip code was revoked by the U.S. Postal Service in 2002. A section of Highway 61 had to be closed and by-passed when the fire passed underneath and buckled the pavement. The landfill was once a good place to observe smoke and stream vapour seeping out of the ground but as the fire burns out in one area and spreads to another, this sight is now rare. As of 2013 there are 7 residents still remaining in Centralia. State and County officials have reached an agreement with those residents allowing them to live out their lives there, after which the rights to their properties will be taken by Pennsylvania via Eminent Domian. Centralia is the inspiration for the movie Silent Hill.
Centralia is about a four hour drive from our home base on the lower Delmarva peninsula. This is an easy day trip for us. Of course geocaching is an important part of our adventures so we planned to find as many of the Centralia caches as we could. We had a good turn-out for this trip with 7 geocachers signed up. CPL940, JRAY1474, MeteoricRogue2, KarlieKacher, Bieber_Fever, morrisfirefighter74 and edownes04 were aboard The Bus. Only one person, CPL940, had previously visited Centralia.
The weather was nice and we made good time to Pennsylvania. The first stop on our Centralia tour was the old town park located at the intersection of Park Street and Locust Avenue. The small park used to feature a wooden bench painted green with the name Centralia stenciled in white, a Veteran's Memorial and a time capsule. Sadly, many of the remaining relics of this unique town are quickly disappearing, either from vandals or by organized groups relocating them for safe keeping. We found the green bench missing and the bell and flag poles at the Veteran's Memorial were gone. The time capsule plaque remained.
The Bus Caching Crew took a road trip to the lost town of Centralia, Pennsylvania. The town became infamous as the result of an underground mine fire that spread beneath the town and forced it's near total abandonment. Today only a handful of residents remain and most of the structures have been razed. What remains is a grid of empty and overgrown streets, a few houses, a church and the municipal building housing the Police and Fire Departments. Properties were claimed under Eminent Domain by Pennsylvania in 1992 and the town's zip code was revoked by the U.S. Postal Service in 2002. A section of Highway 61 had to be closed and by-passed when the fire passed underneath and buckled the pavement. The landfill was once a good place to observe smoke and stream vapour seeping out of the ground but as the fire burns out in one area and spreads to another, this sight is now rare. As of 2013 there are 7 residents still remaining in Centralia. State and County officials have reached an agreement with those residents allowing them to live out their lives there, after which the rights to their properties will be taken by Pennsylvania via Eminent Domian. Centralia is the inspiration for the movie Silent Hill.
Centralia is about a four hour drive from our home base on the lower Delmarva peninsula. This is an easy day trip for us. Of course geocaching is an important part of our adventures so we planned to find as many of the Centralia caches as we could. We had a good turn-out for this trip with 7 geocachers signed up. CPL940, JRAY1474, MeteoricRogue2, KarlieKacher, Bieber_Fever, morrisfirefighter74 and edownes04 were aboard The Bus. Only one person, CPL940, had previously visited Centralia.
The weather was nice and we made good time to Pennsylvania. The first stop on our Centralia tour was the old town park located at the intersection of Park Street and Locust Avenue. The small park used to feature a wooden bench painted green with the name Centralia stenciled in white, a Veteran's Memorial and a time capsule. Sadly, many of the remaining relics of this unique town are quickly disappearing, either from vandals or by organized groups relocating them for safe keeping. We found the green bench missing and the bell and flag poles at the Veteran's Memorial were gone. The time capsule plaque remained.
There were no geocaches at the park but there were two near-by that we decided to walk to. One was two blocks west at Park Street and Plum Street and the other was across Locust Avenue and a block north. We walked over to Plum Street first and found GC3TGGT Plum Crazy Cache. This was a quick, easy find. It's always nice to start a day of caching off with a smiley. Next on the list was GC29BCR Tourist Information - Centralia Style. The log history showed this cache to be tricky for some cachers to find. With seven sets of eyes and a fair amount of experience we were confident we'd find it. It was a well chosen container for the location and could be easily missed but we found it and were 2 for 2 caching in Centralia.
From here we loaded up in The Bus and drove a short distance away to the landfill. The landfill can be accessed from South Street or the western end of Park Street. The landfill is on a ridge and offers a good view of the town below and can be an interesting place to visit. There are some dirt roads/trails leading into the woods. From time to time the ground here can be very hot and cracks in the ground release smoke and steam into the air. Locals say this spot used to offer many souvenirs from the days of constant sampling of the ground. Scientists frequently took core samples to get an idea of where the fire was and how hot conditions were. The samples were described as looking like hockey pucks; small, round, flat pieces of scorched earth that were black in colour. The core samples were discarded all over at one time. On today's visit there no samples to be found nor any smoke to be seen. CPL940 however did find one on his first visit here in 2009. We encountered several other people out and about exploring this area too. Some people were first time visitors and asked our group a lot of questions about this place and other people were former local residents that could educate us about things. Also located near the landfill is the first geocache that we know of to be hidden in Centralia. CPL's first trip to Centralia as a geocacher was in January of 2010 and at that time there was only one geocache on the map in this town. That cache is GCAD5 Smoke On The Horizon. After some exploration of the landfill site, The Bus Caching Crew headed for that cache, which was only a short hike along a dirt road uphill from the landfill. When CPL940 found it originally it was in winter. The terrain and snow on the ground made for a challenging search but he did find it. Today would be an easy find for the rest of the group. Smoke On The Horizon is an old school geocache with a full size notebook in a large container. Once signed and replaced we were off to check out another interesting site, the abandoned section of Highway 61.
We parked near the northern end of the abandoned portion of Route 61. This would make for a downhill trek as we walked along the roadway. This abandoned section of road is also known as The Graffiti Highway for it's large collection of messages and artwork (some not very family-friendly) spray painted onto the asphalt. Toward the top of the hill the graffiti is largely negative and dark and toward the bottom of the grade the messages are uplifting and inspirational. Roughly mid-way down the road is the spot where the underground fire buckled the pavement. Several large cracks have split the road. There are two geocaches placed along The Graffiti Highway as well. In addition to exploring the abandoned highway we found both caches, GC1T2HE Welcome To Graffiti Highway and GC341QF Hot Time in Centralia. Both caches were in good condition and fairly easy to locate. Now we were 5 for 5 finding caches and very much enjoying our day. Before leaving the road we found one of the vents used to take core samples and take readings. These vents can be found all around town. We also discovered an abandoned sofa and easy chair in the woods along one of the many trails.
After exploring the Graffiti Highway and finding the near-by geocaches we were off to the next stop on our tour. Our destination was a church on the hill located on the north side of town. The church's full name is the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church. There is a long stairway leading from the street up to the church. It's an impressive sight while driving up the hillside after exploring the largely building-less town below. Fans of the film Silent Hill will instantly recognize the view. Before arriving at the church we stopped to find another geocache. The geocache was GC21R2T Twelve (yes, 12) Days of Christmas. This cache was in the woods and required just a short detour enroute to the church. This was a cleverly done geocache and we awarded it a favourite point. We signed our 6th cache log of the trip and resumed our drive to the church. Once there we got out and explored a little. We found a cemetery behind the church and up the hillside. We also found an old bathtub. By now the skies turned overcast and a hint of drizzle was in the air. We decided to bring our Centralia adventure to a close and start heading home. We posed for a group photo in front of the church before we left town. There was another geocache in Centralia we needed to get too. This was an Earthcache, GCPK46 Centralia, The Burning Town.
Since we were in Pennsylvania we decided to stop in Philadelphia on our return trip. We took a different route leaving Centralia than we did arriving. We took some of the roads less travelled and found some neat small towns. It took a couple hours to reach Philly and when we did we were ready for dinner. We made our usual stop at Pat's King of Steaks in south Philly. There we filled up on cheesesteaks and worked on the Earthcache requirements. Everyone agreed this was a great trip. Thanks for visiting our blog. We'll conclude this story with some other random photos from this adventure.
NOTE: Since this story was published some geocaches in Centralia have been archived and other new ones have been placed.
The Bus logs geocaches under the username The Bus Caching Crew. We use it when three or more cachers are aboard and find caches new to everyone in the group. We have a Twitter account @Bus_of_Love and try to tweet updates about our road trips as we go.
The Bus logs geocaches under the username The Bus Caching Crew. We use it when three or more cachers are aboard and find caches new to everyone in the group. We have a Twitter account @Bus_of_Love and try to tweet updates about our road trips as we go.