Highway 61 Unvisited

In 1962, some municipal workers in Centralia, Pennsylvania, tried to burn trash at a garbage dump above a coal mine.  That trash fire ignited a coal seam that started a fire that burns underground yet today, and has caused the formerly thriving town of Centralia to become a ghost town (even before the rest of the country followed suit this year).

By 1993, with mining operations a distant memory, the state was forced to close that buckled one-mile section of State Road 61 that sat above the mine some 60 miles northeast of Harrisburg, up in the mountains.

So they closed the road. Roads get closed all the time, you say. But this road took on a whole new life, becoming known as "Graffiti Highway," as over the years, funseekers from all over showed up with spray paint in hand to decorate the old macadam.

Over the years, it became a popular tourist attraction, with all that goes with tourism: mainly, crowds of tourists, and there you have a problem during our pandemic times.

With schools and workplaces closed, there was a big spike in the crowds at the old roadway, and of course, that meant people were not following social distance guidelines.

Admit it: we didn't even know that term two months ago!

And with all the crowding, of course, came a rise in calls for police, fire, and EMS at the scene, and this is not the time in our history to call those people away from more important chores.

“It’s ridiculous,”  Tom Hynoski, Centralia's secretary, fire chief and emergency management agency director, told the Daily Item newspaper. “Oh my God, it’s crazy. They're supposed to be staying home due to the COVID-19, but they're coming from New York and New Jersey to be here."

Pagnotti Enterprises bought the old highway from the state Dept. of Transportation two years ago, and now they have had to hire a company to cover the road - and all that elaborate artwork - with 400 dumptruck loads of dirt. That will take three of four days of trucking.

Vincent Guarna, the president of Pagnotti Enterprises, said, "I think a few weeks ago, there was a fire there, people just starting fires," on WNEP-TV. "They're doing a lot of damage to the community there, and it's time that ends right now."

He went on to say that in the future, they will plant trees and grass where the old road was.

Let's check back in 25 years or so, after those trees have grown around the lush grassy area, and see if people still cluster there for picnics.