Every now and then I learn something new and completely kick myself for never knowing it.. and being born in a town that had a plane crash right into it, you’d think I would have known about that.. But I did not.
To my credit, it occurred on June 17, 1948—long before I was born..
United Airlines Flight 624 crashed at 1:41 PM daylight time just between Aristes, PA and Centralia, PA. Four crew members and 39 passengers on board all perished in the accident..
Among the dead: A Broadway famous man, a fashion designer, and the co-founder of ESQUIRE magazine. It almost hit the then-active Midvalley Colliery 2..
And now I am drowning myself in every bit of history I can on it.. the story absolutely fascinates me. I was born about three blocks from where the crash took place..
It also amazes me that somehow, somewhat, I never knew about this. It completely slipped away.
I heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend.. And I confirmed it through Google searches.. and one on one conversations.
My father is a bastion of history and intelligence.. he gave me some back story on it, and also knew that some bodies were buried in St. Ignatius cemetery in Centralia..
The more we think we know the more we don’t have a clue..
Time to open my mind up to some more coal region history that perhaps has been unknown to me for a lifetime..
While plane crashes occur now and then, this certainly is a strange tale.
Centralia already seemed cursed with the tale of a priest damning the town to misery in the late 1800s after the Molly McGuires attacked him in the back of the St. Ignatius Cemetery.. .. perhaps this plane crash only added to the inevitable misery that the town was yet to endure when a mine fire started deep underground and led all but ten people to vacate it decades later…