The Afterlife of Centralia: Presences in a Landscape of Destruction

Centralia can be thought of as a "remnant landscape". It is a geography of destruction that holds historic and social importance: the effects of coal mining operations on attached social communities. Centralia is "haunted" by the ghosts of place as a process that generates renewed materializations of past actions in new spaces (above rather than below ground). It has created an uncanny and haunting "afterlife" for this former coal mining town. There is still a lived experience here (the "Graffiti Highway"); there is still emotional attachment (the Memorial Day ceremonies by former residents); and there is long-term memory formation (coal mining materializations). The "wildscape" that one confronts in contemporary Centralia is a Frankenstenian assemblage of cultural traces and natural re-growth, thus disassociating itself from any landscape stereotypes. Instead, Centralia confounds acceptable boundaries between nature and culture. This is the Centralia "afterlife".