'GRAFFITI HIGHWAY'
IN PENNSYLVANIA, U.S.A.
G'day folks,
Probably no one would argue that there is something enchanting about abandoned places.
The peaceful grace of human absence just feels so haunting but
compelling at the same time. Surely enough though, almost nothing is
truly abandoned as some adventure seekers wander in from time to time to
remind the nature that quickly creeps back in to claim the abandoned
place for itself, that people have not completely forgotten it. The same
happened with this abandoned part of Route 61 in Pennsylvania. The one
truly special thing about it though is that people who set foot on it
after its abandonment rarely leave without leaving their mark on it.
The Graffiti Highway is located in Centralia, Pennsylvania, about two
and a half hours northwest of Philadelphia and has quite a colorful
history. However, its history began to dim in the spring of 1962 during
Memorial Day preparations.
The town officials decided they would deal with the excess of trash by
burning them before the big Memorial Day Parade. Little did they know
that the landfill blaze would hit a live coal vein underground the town
and would cause fires leading to the town’s demise.
The fire slowly spread around the mines under the city. The fires would
start and be doused and then start again – nothing could stop them from
coming back. Therefore, in the mid-1980s the government decided to
relocate as many residents as possible and provided more than $42
million to help that. More than 1000 people accepted the offer which led
to 500 buildings getting demolished.
Once a thriving small town became a ghost town. Only a handful of people
were still aware that the still-burning town still existed. Only a few
wanderers would step on the abandoned road from time to time. Some of
them started leaving their graffiti markings around the 2000s.
Clancy's comment: Wow. Graffiti has no bounds, eh?
I'm ...
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