SHENANDOAH’S CENTRALIA MOMENT: A look back at the Kehley Run mine fire (Part 2)
SHENANDOAH – When mine fires come up, the six-decade plight of a Columbia County borough is often top-of-mind, as is the misconception driven by said plight that mine fires are an unstoppable force.
As the Centralia Mine Fire saga began, a lesser-known mine fire was raging and threatening what was at the time one of Schuylkill County’s largest communities and economic hubs, yards away from a grocery store and the town’s Little League ballfield.
The sounds of mining equipment digging, blasting, and removing the side of Locust Mountain were as common as the sulfuric fumes of Anthracite coal aflame as scaffolding secured the side of a main regional thoroughfare.
This is part two of our look back at “The Big Dig,” or “Operation Scarlift,” that many of our region’s older residents remember. This is the story of the Kehley Run Mine Fire in the extreme northeast of Shenandoah.
Round Two
Nearly 80 years after the successful operation to extinguish a mine fire which contributed to the deaths of four mine workers, another fire broke out in the Kehley Run mine workings, one which would change the landscape of a section of town and threaten the town’s very existence.
The former Shenandoah Evening Herald reported that smoke was spotted on Monday, July 29, 1957 on the former Kehley Run tract “east of the Babe Ruth Stadium.” The Babe Ruth Stadium the Herald refers to is the former Little League field.
At the time, the only ballpark in Shenandoah was on a hill near Girard Park, east and above what is today Lee’s Oriental Foods. Yes, above (slightly). The field at Bicentennial Park, known for decades as “the Babe Ruth” to locals despite the lengthy absence of a Babe Ruth League team, and the current Joe “Shorty” Uholik Stadium had yet to be built.
The mine slope from which smoke was seen had been abandoned since 1948 at the time.
“Some time over the weekend, it is presumed that unknown parties ignited some boards around the mouth of the slope,” the Herald reported on July 30. “In turn, burning embers fell down the opening to ignite debris.”
The Girard Estate used a dozer to attempt to smother the fire, pushing dirt and clay down the mine opening.
“It is the opinion of all parties concerned that no further trouble will result,” the Herald reported.
A few months later, the fire came up in the paper once again, mentioned in Bill O’Brien’s “News Items About Folks You Know” column on Nov. 18, 1957.
“That mine fire in the abandoned coal hole slope just northeast of the local Little League Park is exuding an unbearable odor,” O’Brien wrote. “And when the wind is toward town from the north, the smell makes life miserable for First Warders. Looks like the only recourse in extinguishing the fire before it spreads to unattainable depths is to get a power shovel in and root it out.”
By the turn of the New Year, the fire was becoming a major concern for folks on the east end.
Joseph Snyder, a retired miner living at 124 East Penn Street, wrote to the Herald on Jan. 2 saying he “can’t understand why some official agency has not taken the trouble of remedying this unhealthy and dangerous situation.”
“Choking fumes, depending on the wind drift, and other atmospheric conditions, are hard to endure, particularly during sleeping hours,” Snyder wrote to the Herald. “There are probably several hundred families in this particular district, many including very young children and a fairly large proportion of aged people.”
Snyder expressed further concern because of the Locust Mountain Hospital’s proximity — 800 yards away, and the location of the Kehley Run mine workings extending as far west as the “Flats” — the 600 block of West Coal Street.
“Can’t some agency do something about this? Or will our officials sit back and wait for half the town to burn away underground,” Snyder wrote.
Within the month, the federal Bureau of Mines began an investigation into the fire, the Herald reported on Jan. 21.
“Fears of disastrous consequences unless action is taken to extinguish the blaze have been voice in many quarters locally in recent weeks,” the Herald wrote.
“In the interests of public health and safety, there should be no more delay,” the Herald added in a Jan. 15, 1958, editorial.
On Feb. 17, borough council approved taking legal action to pursue a solution. A council committee to fight the fire, consisting of Bernard Shirkness, John Buchinsky, and Charles Valetske, reported that little progress had been made until then to find a solution.
Council also stipulated that “nothing is to be disturbed but the fire” in any attempt to extinguish the fire. The move was to prevent an extended stripping operation on behalf of East Washington Street property owners.
On Feb. 27, the Herald reported that the federal Bureau of Mines investigated the blaze, but lacked funds to take action at the time.
The feds said that the fire was about 500 feet north of Washington Street and 1,500 feet east of Main Street and had been sparked when the remains of an old engine house burned in July of 1957. They predicted that, within five years, the water level would rise by 200 feet and would stop the fire’s southward spread into town at Penn Street.
The fire, though, “could extend east and west over the entire crop area of the three beds (Mammoth, Skidmore, and Seven Foot) on the Kehley Run property with the possibility of a refuse bank north of the fire area becoming ignited.”
Council’s committee met with W. Parks Millington, of the Girard Estate, in April of 1958, which Shirkness described to the Herald as “a very hostile meeting throughout,” in which the Girard Estate denied responsibility, and instead blamed the borough for obstructing efforts by prohibiting an extended stripping project in the area.
READ PART THREE: Squabble, Squabble, Squabble
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