Anybody been to Centralia, PA or Times Beach, MO?

Where's the damn beach?

I want to go to Centralia

I’ve taken the Ruddock exit on 55 once.

I've been to Times Beach & worked with a guy who lived there & was part of the evacuation TB was situated on the Meramec River and was mobile homes and a lot of stilted fishing cabins. Flooding was always an issue.

The name Russell Bliss left a legacy of lawsuits in the area close to me where he sprayed roads for dust mitigation. A lot of the oil came from used transformers from the old Wagner Electric company.

We ought to EPA put a dome over BogalUSA like in the Simpsons movie.

My mother grew up in Centralia prior to moving to Philadelphia in the 40's.

We went a lot because either someone was a relative or friends of the family.

It was actually a cool town at one point. You could gamble at the Legion...or get cheap drinks. One of my uncles ran a general story with a soda fountain...so we always went there during the day. The family lived upstairs.

My aunt had a double... on her side you could access the upstairs of the other side of the double. Downstairs was it's own place.

Cooked over a coal fired stove. My mother said they liked going over to their grandmother's because they had indoor plumbing.

Here's what I remember distinctly: Everyone laughed when the underground fire started in the abandoned coal mines in the 60's.... you know what happens next

We have a lot of relatives buried in a cemetery on a hill.. including my grandparents.

Another fun thing I remember is our uncles taking us to the dump "to shoot rats". Never saw a rat...but we shot up a lot of coke bottles.

Simple times... lots of cousins, plenty of food,adults doing a lot of drinking.. oh and party lines for phones,

All of our relatives took a buyout.

I am sure that's more than you wanted to know. I am 63

I grew up about an hour from Centralia. They have some of the best atv trails in that area. The stretch of highway that was closed down do to the fire became known as the Graffiti Highway. Thanks to the Corona Virus they started to cover it up by bringing in dirt to keep people from visiting the area.

Graffiti Highway

Silent Hill was supposedly modeled after Centralia



Church in Centralia vs the one in the movie

quote:

---

natsoundup

---

Cool story, Bro, seriously.

I spent a lot of time in Times Beach when I was a teenager. I went to Jr High and High School in Eureka, MO, which is about two miles from Times Beach. My dad was the project engineer on that portion of Interstate 44; he had a temporary office set up there.

Times Beach was originally a resort community in the 1920’s; a St Louis newspaper gave away property with subscriptions. It became a working class neighborhood at some point. A lot of the roads were dirt/gravel, and the substance was sprayed to reduce dust. I think they discovered the dioxin after a flood, and people were told to pack everything and get out. They never built on the land after the EPA cleanup; they let it grow wild and now it’s Route 66 State Park.