What is the title of the documentary film about Centralia, PA?”
THE TOWN THAT WAS DOCUMENTARY a film by Chris Perkel and Georgie Roland In 1962, a trash fire ignited a seam of anthracite coal beneath Centralia, Pennsylvania, a once-thriving mining town of over 3,000 people. By the mid-1980s, giant plumes of smoke and deadly carbon monoxide gases billowed from fissures in the ground, the local highway cracked and collapsed, trees were bleached white and petrified, as the fire continued to rage unchecked. It wasn’t until a young boy nearly died after falling into a smoldering mine subsidence that the government was pressed into action. After estimating the cost of extinguishing the fire at over half a billion dollars, the government instead opted to raze the town and relocate its residents. Today, 11 die-hards remain. Filmed over a period of four years with interviews ranging from former residents to Congressmen, The Town That Was is an intimate portrait of John Lokitis, the youngest remaining Centralian, and his quixotic fight to keep alive a hometo
Georgie Roland went to L.A. to learn movie making, but he came home to small-town Pennsylvania to finish his film education. In the hardscrabble hills of northeastern Pennsylvania, Roland would shed the influence of Hollywood and teach himself how to tell stories about the way people really live. The result was The Town That Was, a documentary about the strange history of Centralia, Pa., a once-thriving mining town in Columbia County that sits atop an underground coal fire that has smoldered since 1962. These are the same authorities who let the fire rage on because of budgetary constraints, according to several political leaders and experts interviewed in the film. The fire “could have been stopped for a couple of thousand dollars” in 1962, Roland says. “By the 1980s, they estimated it would cost $650 million. It was cheaper to move everyone.” Roland notes that geologists predict the region’s huge anthracite coal reserves will keep the fire going for millions of years.
