Smoking Hills of Centralia

How is started is unclear, but one thing is certain: it never stopped. The town of Centralia, PA is now the least populated in all of Pennsylvania, with an estimated population of seven individuals. In 1962, the town boasted close to 1000 residents, and they had their own landfill in the hills above town. Stories vary, but at some point, a fire started in the dump – a fairly common and sometimes desired event. But Centralia is located in the heart of Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal region, and an exposed seam in the dump caught fire and spread underground.

While a fire burning underground may not seem like a big deal, it had a big effect. Over the years, people began to notice strange things… basements were warm in the winter, road maintenance was increasing, and there were patches where snow would melt quickly. One gas station attendant was testing fuel levels and was surprised when the dipstick came up hot. He lowered a thermometer and was astonished to find a reading of 171ºF.

In the 1980’s, a boy was playing in his backyard only to have hell open up beneath him. A four foot wide hole some 150 feet deep engulfed him, though he was lucky enough to grab on to some roots where his cousin could reach down and save him. A few more feet, and he would have been overcome by the intense heat and noxious gases. How hot? Hotter than the planet Mercury at over 1000ºF.

When the highway started to buckle and smolder (it is now completely abandoned, with an awkward detour as you travel by Centralia), the state came in and declared eminent domain, forcing residents to move to nearby towns. Though nearly all of the town’s structure were razed, some folks refused to move, claiming that the government was after the estimated $1,000,000,000 in coal beneath the town.

If that was the government’s goal, they’d better hurry. Though an estimated $50,000,000 has been spent trying to fight the fires, they’re still burning strong. There is a constant mist over the town visible for miles, and residents from other towns fear that eventually, the fire will spread to them.

Abandoned PA Route 61 Continues to Burn

You can drive through Centralia today, though you’ll see only empty streets and maybe some smoking pipes sticking out of the ground. The adventurous may even travel down the smoking highway, as Alison Smith and I (foolishly) did last September.

And for you Silent Hill fans out there – it’s true. Centralia is the basis for the video game series, though we found no haunted schools or malevolent ghoulies.

The real stuff was scary enough.

It was June 6, 1822, on Mackinac (Big Turtle) Island, in Lake Huron. 18-year old Alexis St. Martin was working at a fur trading depot, when an accidental musket shot tore a hole through his ribs and stomach, exposing his viscera. Several ribs were broken, his lungs and diaphragm were damaged, and a hole was torn into his actual stomach. William Beaumont, MD was summoned from nearby Fort Mackinac and attended to the boy’s wounds.

It was a serious case. Though the lad was stabilized – bleeding stopped and no signs of infection – there was a very practical problem with digestion: the food he ate came out of the hole in his side. For weeks, he could obtain no nutrition from anything ate, forcing the doctor to give him nutritive enemas in order to sustain life.

In time, the addition of straps allowed the fistula to heal and digestion returned to as normal a state as could be expected. However, the hole though his abdomen and into his stomach never closed fully. In fact, the walls of the stomach fused with the exterior skin, creating a permanent window into Alexis’ digestive system.

At the time, almost nothing was known of digestion. Food went in, waste came out, and somehow in the middle nutrients were extracted. Dr. Beaumont saw an opportunity. In what would certainly be considered an ethical violation in modern times, Beaumont got Alexis to agree to be his servant. His role would include chopping wood, fetching bundles, and allowing Dr. Beaumont to experiment on him in rather unique ways.

The doctor was a man of science, and lost no opportunity to learn as much as he could. He tied bits of string to food, and lowered into the hole in Alexis’ side. After a time, he would pull the food back out and observe its condition. Some food was left in longer or given longer pieces of string. Much probing and measurement occurred, not only with fingers and instruments, but also with the Dr.’s tongue. He would taste the wound to determine it’s “sourness” and thus it’s alkalinity, with a more sour taste indicating a lower pH and higher acid content.

Beaumont would take copious notes, and reflect upon his observations. While they may seem quaint to us now (Beaumont wondered how food was separated into different components, and why animal blood was digested as all, as it should have just been transported to the arteries whole by his logic), his writings formed the basis for all we know about digestion today. Thanks to the wonders of Google, his magnum opus, Experiments and Observations of the Gastric Juice and the Physiology of Digestion is available online in full.

In a strange twist of fate, the damaged Alexis St. Martin outlived the doctor by 10 years, finally succumbing not from his wounds, but from old age at 78 years. The good doctor only lived to be 68, having died from a fall on icy stairs. We owe both men a debt of gratitude for furthering modern science. As a side note, similar experiments continue. It is fairly commonplace for such windows to placed in cows to observe the process of rumination, as can be seen in this YouTube video.

The Devil has earned many place names. Devils Island, Kill Devil Hills, Devils Den, and Devils Lake come easily to mind. But there is one place name that has some history with an actual devil, and that is Devils Hole in the Armargosa (bitter) Desert of Nevada, just East of the appropriately named Death Valley.  Unlike other legends, there actually is something really weird here.

The devil in this case was Charles Manson. It is said that he would wander the desert for days looking for a hole to the underworld where he would take his “family” when the inevitable global race war started. When he found Devils Hole, he thought he was on to something.

The hole itself is in a rock outcropping. It doesn’t look like much, but it is filled with salt water heated by a geothermal spring (miners have used it for bathing). The water isn’t quite as hot as hell, but the hole’s depth and temperature in this bleak environment certain call up images of purgatory. And it’s not rainwater – it very rarely rains in the desert. This water is “fossil” ground water, thousands of years old.

Manson found the presence of water perplexing. He believed it was a barrier, like a gate, and he was determined to find a way to drain it. He supposedly sat by the hole meditating for three days trying to figure out hole’s mysteries.

And it is quite mysterious. It is, for all intents and purposes, bottomless. Two divers died there in 1967, their bodies never recovered. The hole is filled with caves that apparently connect to other sources of water in the valley, and it may be possible to travel from one to the other, though it would be a foolish journey. So foolish, the hole is now fenced off completely.

Manson might get his wish. Since the 90’s, the water level in the hole has been dropping. Pumping in the desert to supply Las Vegas’s endless thirst may be to blame, but no one is sure. However, there are other Devils in Devils Hole, Cyprinodon diabolis, or the Devils Hole pupfish that are at extreme risk.

Devils Hole is the only place this particular species of small blue minnows is found. They’re fascinating to watch – with blue flashes shining the desert sun – but their entire food supply is found on an algae covered shelf of rock. If the water drops too much, no food , and no pupfish. They are among the most endangered animals in the United States today, and it’s estimated that they’ve been in the hole for over 10,000 years.

Another strange fact about the pupfish… they may depend on owls. Roosting barn owls in the cave over Devils Hole vomit pellets into the water that may add nutrients needed by the algae.

At the age of 74, Manson may yet outlive the pupfish, but it’s very unlikely that the parole board will ever let him be a direct threat to the pupfish. And if he chose to return to his desert hideout known as Barker Ranch, he’d find only burned ruins thanks to the work of arsonists in May, 2009.

Strange bones found in Charlotte, VT in 1849

It was 1849, near Charlotte some ten miles south of the capital city of Burlington. Vermont was slowly industrializing, and the railroad was coming with the promise of connecting this perpetually rural region with the rest of the nation. To keep the railroad level enough for the primitive engines of the time, rail beds were hand-dug by large labor crews. The rocky soil and hilly terrain made work difficult.

The workmen were accustomed to finding unusual things as they made their slow progress towards Burlington. Arrowheads and pottery shards were common; bones, less so. And bones like those found one particular day had never been seen before.

As they dug through a hillside, a skull emerged from the slimy grey-blue clay. It was big, and at first the workmen thought they’d found the remains of a large horse. As they unearthed more of it, they realized they’d encountered something very different, for this horse had no legs.

(more…)