Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Silent Hill, Real or Fake, Or Both?

First, The story of Silent Hill (complete fiction, as it is a video game plot)
I SAY AGAIN, THIS PART OF THE ARTICLE IS FICTION

The town of Silent Hill, in Toluca County Pennsylvania, was Founded as a Village in the 1600's, and registered as a US City in the Early 1800's. Prior to the 16th century, the Native American tribe who resided there would perform their religious ceremonies in the area, and prospered until the mid-1600's when the American colonists decided to colonize the town as Silent Hill. Thus the town was born. Silent Hill was a booming town with industry until around 1702 when a strange epidemic breaks out and the entire town is deserted. Over 100 years later in 1810, Silent Hill was once again recognized as a city and registered with the US roster. This time, though, the town had precautionarily built a Hospital and a pirzon to help better the conditions of living in the town. The prizon remained open until 1840 when it was demolished due to dilapadated conditions and lack of funds, and the prizoners were transferred to a Pennsylvania State Penitentiary. Later in the decade, a coal field is discovered and the mining business made silent hill explode into a prosperous place once again.After the Civil War was started, the town built a prizon camp for POW's known as Camp Toluca, and had many prizoners during and shortly after the war, and was then reopened as a state penitentiary renamed Toluca prizon. After the war, the Town had a mysterious secret it was keeping, all of its residents started to go missing one after another. Toluca prizon was closed and Silent Hill, along with the neighboring Toluca Lake became a sightseeing area, until a boat on the lake vanished without a trace. People populated Silent Hill until 1972, when the then defunct coal mine was accidentally ignited. The state police had believed they evacuated all of the residents, and sealed the town off with fences and dirt walls to prevent people from entering the highly-toxic carbon monoxide gaspockets in the area. These are the events leading up to the game, which is horendously gorey and disgusting, and I will not discuss it on this blog.

AND NOW THE NON FICTION
Centralia, PA, The real Silent Hill.

Founded in the 1800's, Centralia, PA, was a small town with less than 1000 people in it's entire span as a town. In the 1860's, a large anthracite coal mine was dug in the city and it prospered for 100 years with the mine. However, on May 27, 1962, Centralia was about te endure one of the biggest disasters in Pennsylvania History . It all started as a regular week in centralia, the miners went to work, the businessman wore their fine suits to the offices, and the local Fire Dept. was ordered to clean out the town landfill. In the years before 1962, the dump was located in a valley towards the outside of tow, away from the mine, however, just months before the fire, the mayor had the dump relocated to an abadoned granite strip mine closer to the town. The fire was controlled to the best efforts of the Volunteer fire dept., But to the Firefigters and mayors dismay, a seldom used coal vein had been exposed to the granite quarry, and quickly caught fire. This affected the town very little until the early 1970's when several people were suffering from Carbon Monoxide poisoning. These people were relocated and their houses condemned, and life returned to normal, until 1979, whn the owner of the local gas station stuck a stick into his underground tank to measure the level, when he pulled it out, he found that the stick was hot, so he lowered in a thermometer, and to his dismay, the gasoline had a temperature of 179 degrees F. The townspeople mostly stayed put and the gas station was closed. National attention was brought to Centralia in 1981 when a 12-year-old boy fell in to a sinkhole four feed wide by 150 feet deep. He held on to an exposed root and was pulled out by his cousin. in 1984, Congress gave $42 million to the town to relocate, most people left, but a few families stayed. In 1992, the state of Pennsylvania took ownership of all the buildings in Centralia, which were all condemned except for populated residences. The last day of the official city of Centralia was in early 2002 when the USPS revoked its ZIP code. As late as 2005, though, 9 people still live in Centralia, making it the smalles town in Pennsylvania to date.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

I got $3050.00 today!

In Iraqui Dinars, that have saddam husseins face on the front, now worth nothing but sentiment to some and resentmen to others.

Just some tunes!