At one time, the tow­n of Centralia, Penn., supported almost 3,000 residents, with stores, churches, hotels and bars. It was a boomtown, established in 1866 and built from the profits of coal mined out of the Pennsylvania hillside. It was this same coal that led to Centralia's almost complete demise. City workers burning trash in an open pit in 1962 accidentally lit a vein of anthracite coal, part of the vast deposit that lay beneath the town. 50 years later this fire still burns.