SHENANDOAH’S CENTRALIA MOMENT: A look back at the Kehley Run mine fire (Part 5)
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 the fifth and final part 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.
What next?
The end of the Kehley Run Mine Fire came on June 3, 1977, when state and local officials toured the completed site. The final price tag was $12.9 Million ($62,331,651.57 today).
“Had action been taken immediately, the fire could have been extinguished in a day or two at a cost of a few thousand dollars,” the Herald reported in the June 4 edition.
With the fire out, borough officials and residents began to look ahead at the future of the site.
Shenandoah needed industry, recreation, and a new high school to replace the aging J.W. Cooper Memorial High School.
Some floated around the idea of a dirt road to the Sandy Beach Recreation Area.
Councilman Anthony Grodzki suggested an overlook atop Locust Mountain, above the Kehley Run site, as a miners memorial. He suggested it be placed “roughly between the Herald building and the Heights intersection.” The Heights intersection was several hundred yards farther west than it is today.
“He said the site could contain a plaque with a memorial to deceased miners and provide space for pedestrian observation of Shenandoah and he suggested that perhaps a nature trail from Girard Park could lead to the site,” the Herald wrote on Oct. 20, 1976.
The Shenandoah Valley School District eyed the plot — one of the largest single plots of land to ever be available in the borough — for a new school complex. The Girard Estate, however, claimed in December of 1976 that it would not be possible to donate the land to the district, this despite the Girard Estate’s sole purpose being to further education.
The district at the time operated seven buildings, of which several had code or fire violations.
With the Girard Estate refusing to cooperate with the district, Shenandoah Valley moved forward with building the present-day high school at 805 West Centre Street.
In the winter of 1978-79, part of the Kehley Run site was used as an ice skating rink.
In August of 1979, the site served as an emergency landing area for a military helicopter. The copter landed there on August 18 after encountering difficulties in rainy conditions. The four-man crew was on their way to Fort Campbell in Kentucky and, according to the Herald, they nearly struck the Turkey Run water tower and the town’s church steeples. On-board were Jim Vargo, Gene Hartnett, Jeff Carr, and Robert Clendenin.
Those soldiers weren’t the only ones to use the Kehley Run site as a landing point.
The Blue Ridge Gliding Club, Allentown, took to the skies with hang gliders from near the Evening Herald building, flying over and landing on the former Kehley Run site, the Herald reported in July of 1980.
The club said it was a good area to learn and experience turns during flight.
Part of the site, east of the creek, was used as a firing range for Borough Police. Officers of the department constructed and financed the facility on their own, leasing land from the Girard Estate.
Capt. Charles Bartusik led the effort and concrete walks for the firing range were laid in 1980.
Within about four years, newspaper articles referred to the site as the “former” police firing range and, today, the concrete remains, but the site is officially abandoned. Though, there is evidence some folks are still using the facility for its original purpose.
In December of that year, the Shenandoah Chamber of Commerce expressed support for a new 120-bed nursing home, the Shenandoah Manor, on the site. The proposed nursing home would cost $2.9 Million ($6,432,819.88 today).
Ground was broken on the Manor on March 31, 1982.
In the years since, the property was acquired by the Schuylkill Economic Development Corporation and subdivided. Two new businesses were built — Amity Carts and Antz HVAC — along East Washington Street as well.
Following the closure of Locust Mountain State Hospital in Shenandoah Heights, a helipad was constructed at the far east end of East Washington Street to help transport critical patients to hospitals in Danville and Hazleton, either via ambulance or the St. Joseph’s Hospital Satellite downtown.
In the years since, the helipad has seen more frequent use following the closure of the St. Joseph’s Hospital Satellite and the abandonment of St. Catherine’s Medical Center in Fountain Springs, the former Ashland Regional Medical Center and Ashland State General Hospital.
Three of the parcels of the former mine fire site remained undeveloped and are currently owned by Antz.
Today, the undeveloped land where the mine fire had burned, closest to the Kehley Run waterfall, has become wetland.
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