The Ohio Mine Fire Older Than Centralia (Still Burning).

On a hill outside a small Ohio town, a family feeds their chickens while smoke rises out of the ground behind them. The fire under New Straitsville began in 1884, during a coal miners' strike, and the strikers were blamed. It has never been put out. This is the story of the strike, the secret cave, the families who lived on top of a fire, the WPA's fight to stop it, and why you have heard of Centralia but not of the fire that started 78 years earlier. Subscribe for the next story in The Forgotten 50, and tell me in the comments which place I should cover next. CHAPTERS 0:00 The fire nobody put out 1:30 A fortune buried in the hills 2:48 Paid by the ton 3:08 The Syndicate and the strike 4:19 The evictions 4:41 The fire starts 6:14 Robinson's Cave 7:38 Living on top of a fire 9:31 Fighting the fire 10:16 Moonshine years 10:49 The WPA goes to war 12:18 The town empties 13:43 San Toy and Murray City 14:39 Why Centralia is famous 16:07 Still smoldering today SOURCES Ohio Memory, New Straitsville Mine Fire (Ohio History Connection): https://ohiomemory.ohiohistory.org/archive... Southeast Ohio Magazine, labor history (Apr 27, 2026): https://southeastohiomagazine.com/a-proud-... Clio, New Straitsville: https://theclio.com/entry/93692 Robinson's Cave marker: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=122775 Hocking Valley Coal Strike marker: https://remarkableohio.org/marker/6-5-the-... World's Greatest Mine Fire marker: https://remarkableohio.org/marker/12-64-wo... Mine Fire and Rock Run Reclamation marker: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=166297 George Hoadly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hoadly New Straitsville census data: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Straitsv... Shawnee, Ohio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shawnee,_Per... Tecumseh Theater (Spectrum News, May 27, 2026): https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news... Murray City and Hocking County coal towns: https://coalcampusa.com/eastoh/hocking/hoc... Rush family photo (OhioPix): https://ohiopix.org/record-display/p267401... Walter E. Burton photo, 1938 (OhioPix): https://ohiopix.org/record-display/p15005c... New Straitsville South Restoration (USDA Forest Service): https://www.fs.usda.gov/r09/wayne/projects... Moonshine years: https://www.appalachianhistory.net/categor... Centralia mine fire: https://www.centraliapa.org/ PHOTO AND FOOTAGE CREDITS Archive photos: Ohio History Connection / Ohio Memory. Works Progress Administration photos by Walter E. Burton (1938) and Ohio Federal Writers' Project photos (c. 1935-43), "No Copyright - United States". 1884-85 newspaper pages via Ohio Memory (public domain). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons: Library of Congress (1884 Hocking Valley strike engraving; Joseph Keppler cartoon, 1884; H.F. Walling map of Perry County, 1859; Historic American Buildings Survey), Sanborn fire insurance maps via DPLA (1896, 1913, 1933), Hocking Valley coal-field photographs (c. 1890-1917), U.S. Bureau of Mines (1969), U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Dept. of the Interior (1946), and photos by Nyttend and Shorty Addington. CC BY via Wikimedia Commons (images may be cropped or zoomed): James St. John (CC BY 2.0), Wayne National Forest (CC BY 2.0), "San Toy.jpg", unknown author (CC BY 2.5). Licenses: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 and creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5 Stock video (Pexels): EJ Merl, David Pickup, Julien Goettelmann, Sascha Weber, Chris Mauney, Tom Fisk, Salim Da, Matias Luge, Engin Akyurt, Florian Delee, K, Jeremy Hardin, cottonbro studio, Pixabay, Matthias Groeneveld, Darina Evstafeva, Stephen Pierce, I Am Sorin, Coverr, Marius Manzat, Roman Odintsov, Johan Lundgren. Sound effects (Pixabay): freesound_community, KoiRoylers, Universfield, ROHHSADOTCOM, DRAGON-STUDIO, solarmusic. Some clips are generic stock footage used for atmosphere and do not show the actual places. Census chart and title cards made for this video. Narration is AI-generated. #ghosttowns #ohio #forgottentowns