Centralia in the News
Centralia tourism
If you go to Centralia on nearly any weekend and park in the make-shift lot at the corner of Locust Avenue and South Street, where Coddington's Amoco Station used to be, you are likely to have company. People come here from literally miles around, from distant states even, to see the Centralia mine fire. When I went up there April 29 to be interviewed by Russian State Television, the reporter, Evgeny Popov, told me they had talked earlier in the day to people from Michigan, "Silent Hill" fans who wanted to see the town that inspired screenwriter Roger Avary and director Christophe Gans (it's true--they acknowledge it), even if Centralia, unlike Silent Hill, doesn't have strange monsters living beneath it. As far as we know. During my interview with Popov, a man with a camera stopped to talk to us. He had come there from Massachusetts.
Centralia tourism has drawn the attention of Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa. A study by Caitlin Mahoney in the History Department found that some local businesses, including the Pioneer Tunnel coal mine tour in nearby Ashland, actively promote Centralia visits in the name of good old American profit. Visitors fall into two categories, the study says. "Fringe" tourists value Centralia for its status as "an unofficial, hidden destination," and heritage tourists who visit the site on the encouragement of regional our guides, store employees and officials. Amusingly, the study found that many of those interested in Centralia "do not fit into the target audience of recent governmental efforts at promoting cultural tourism."
Live and learn
I watched WITF TV's ExplorePA's "Schuylkill County" episode this week, the one that shows me giving a tour of the Centralia mine fire to the delightful Leidigh family from Carlisle, Pa. I didn't think much of the overall show--it's a really dumbed-down, goofy approach to a travelogue, a kind of Philadelphia view of what the great unwashed masses in the rest of the state find entertaining--or of their failure to identify who I was. They gave my name, and that's it. Viewers were left to imagine why I was there talking about the Centralia mine fire. Now you have to know that when I've been on the History Channel, or Russian State Television, or the documentary, The Town That Was, or Fresh Air, or the Diane Rehm Show, they always describe me as the author of Unseen Danger or at least as an author. It's simple, good journalism in addition to being a thank you to the person who helped you make your show or film attractive and interesting to viewers. I had an unpleasant conversation with some woman from WITF about this on Thursday and she haughtily insisted that they don't identify anybody and wouldn't make an exception for me. Great journalism is all I can say.
And so it goes. I regret having spent Labor Day weekend Saturday helping WITF at my own expense for this kind of shabby treatment. If I had delved into it, I would have known that this is a station that tries to exploit its own workers, so why should I be any different? At the time, WITF was in a bitter, union-busting war with NABET/CWA Local 213, which represents the crew that filmed me. That war ended last October with a humilating defeat for WITF. Which is as it should be and too often isn't when management tries to bust a union.
Explore PA visits Centralia
This coming Wednesday, July 16 at 8 p.m., repeating Saturday, July 19, at 3 p.m., WITF-TV in Harrisburg, Pa., will visit Centralia as part of an episode in the new season of Explore PA, the series which follows regular Pennsylvania families as they visit interesting places around the state. I was asked by WITF to give a tour of the Centralia mine fire to the Leidigh family from Carlisle as part of the "Schuylkill County" episode. Centralia is technically in Columbia County, but it's about a mile or less from the Schuylkill County line. Plus, it's damned interesting. How much of the tour made it into the show I don't know. I walked the Leidigh's around the area where the fire started and where it burns today. They were quite interested, even though it was a bad day for steam. The episode was filmed last Labor Day weekend on a warm day, so there was only a little steam issuing from the ground over the fire.
I've done the tour guide thing many times, most notably around 1988 or 1989 for Bill O'Reilly (yes, that one) when he was hosting the tabloid TV series Inside Edition. This was long before his Fox News days. Inside Edition was doing a segment on the Centralia mine fire, and O'Reilly wanted me to give him a tour. Unlike my tour for the Leidighs, the ground was steaming profusely that day as he and I walked around followed by a camera crew. Nice guy, no question about it. I'm not a fan of him today, but he did well by me back then. I don't have a copy of that show, but would love to have one.
Other public TV stations around Pennsylvania will be showing the Explore PA series. I'm trying to find out when they will show the "Schuylkill County" episode and will post that information if I do.
Other stuff
To find out what (mostly) former Centralia residents are thinking and talking about these days, check out Ritamarie Long’s website . Make your way down the page through the ads and click on Message Board to get to, well, the message board. Very lively and informative at times.
Read the Sunday New York Times review of Unseen Danger from Jan. 4, 1987.
Another very good discussion group about Centralia and Conyngham Twp. can be found here. You must sign up to use it, but that's easy to do.