Guest Blog: ForgottenPA-Concrete City, Pennsylvania

All the way back in 2007, when ForgottenPA was just a little personal
blog about my group's visit to Centralia, we caught wind of a ghost
town with actual empty houses still in it. Not only were there
buildings, but they were made of concrete! We couldn't get there fast
enough.

That ghost town, of course, was Concrete City, in Nanticoke.
Construction began in 1911 and was  completed in 1913 by the coal
division of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company to
provide homes for colliery workers. The two-story double homes were
literally made of poured concrete, efficiently using the same floor
plan for both the first and second floors – the second floors all had
staircases that ran into the ceilings, without providing any access to
the roof.

Rented out for $8 a month, the houses served as homes for some of the
company's top staff, but problems cropped up. Paint blistered and
peeled. Water condensed on the inside walls, in spite of using
moisture-repellent construction materials and plaster. One former
resident even said that, in winter, her father's shirts would freeze,
and her mother had to iron them before he could even put them on.

Above all, the houses lacked indoor plumbing, and when it became
standard for residential housing, the company was not interested in
making the improvements. Concrete city was abandoned in 1924, only
eleven years after its construction. Attempts to demolish the town
were also unsuccessful – it was said that a hundred sticks of dynamite
did little to bring down one of the houses.

The trip to Concrete City was a turning point for us – obviously we
weren't poking around the houses in Centralia, but here, we had the
freedom to enter the buildings, to see what time and Mother Nature can
do to man-made structures, to really explore. After being so excited
to get to Concrete City, we felt a real dread, standing at the gaping
black entryway of the first house: What was in there? Would we make it
out alive? When we came out, would we ever be the same?

Of course there was interesting and unique things to see in all the
buildings; clearly, we survived; but we never were the same after our
visit to Concrete City. More than ever, we wanted to explore, to
learn, to see what other wonderful secrets Pennsylvania had been
keeping tucked out of the way. And even though the necessities of work
and life may keep us busy, like the houses at that old ghost town, our
love of exploration will survive anything.
Written by Steve Skipp c/o ForgottenPA

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Guest Blog: B.B.Bellezza Green Jewelry-Speedwell Forge Wolf Sanctuary

I had originally heard about the wolf sanctuary because I had friends who used to live there years ago before the buildings were transformed into a bed and breakfast. I had visions of a fence around a yard where a bunch of wolves basically hung out in a grassy yard and howled whenever the moon came out.

I’ve wanted to take a tour of the wolf sanctuary for some time now, so when the director of the sanctuary asked me to be part of Music and Art With the Wolves, I jumped at the chance.

Boy, was I wrong about the wolves, too.

First of all, it’s not a grassy lawn, the wolf sanctuary is on 22 acres of wooded land. Yes, there are fences, but not at all like what I was envisioning.

I was right about the howling. We arrived to set up for the show and got a chorus of howling or as the volunteers call it, “singing.” Surprisingly, it sounds basically like you would imagine from television or the movies. It’s so much more beautiful in person though.

In addition to rescuing and rehabbing wolves, the sanctuary is an educational tool. They strive to teach people that wolves are beautiful creatures, but they are most definitely not pets. I see why people might think of them for a pet, they are gorgeous and they seem like dogs. We have to remember these are wild animals, though, and they will follow their natural instincts. Many of the wolves are there because people originally thought they would make good pets and found out they are not.

The Sanctuary currently provides food, shelter and veterinary care for over forty Wolves with no government or corporate assistance. They survive on fund raising events like the one I attended, people adopting wolves, generous donations, funds raised from giving tours and gift shop sales.

It is always a little sad for me to see wild animals behind a fence or in a cage and not free. It does make me feel better to know that these particular animals are in captivity because they were rescued and being rehabbed. They would not survive in the wild. It is difficult to release an animal once it has been in captivity, so they will live out the rest of their lives at the sanctuary. They didn’t seem to mind, though, since they have so much space.

The art and music show itself was what I would consider an almost perfect day: great music, good food, wonderful art, interesting people, tucked away in the woods and for a great cause. I highly recommend that you check it out next year. In the meantime, the wolf sanctuary has tours on weekdays and weekends and provides full moon tours, which I intend to check out as well.

Outta the Way! video of wolf sanctuary.

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Skull Tree: R.I.P.

(Photo from Weird U.S.)

Pennsylvania is a state known mostly for it's abundance of natural resources. Oil, coal, natural gas, and most notably timber. They all played an important role in the commonwealth's history.
With all the timber and trees spread throughout the state, it's only natural a few would sprout urban legends of their own.

One of the most famous trees in the keystone state is the skull tree. Located in a remote area, near a reputed cult house, the tree became an entity of it's own. It came to be known as the skull tree due to the erosion of ground around the roots, giving the tree a grimly look of a human skull.

The tree eventually became a nuisance to local homeowners. Young thrill seekers would often scour the back road late at night, hoping for a glimpse of the notorious tree. They would all too often leave their mark behind as well, often littering and tagging trees or street signs. The vandals had become such a disturbance that the township has since had the infamous tree removed. Another outta the way gem destroyed by a few irresponsible hoodlums!

Video ride down devil's road, home of skull tree

What's a Zine?

What's a zine? This is a question that regularly gets asked when I'm explaining Outta the Way. I usually just answer " it's a mini magazine." But that's such a generic answer, truthfully zines are much more than that. Usually the term is referred to any self published work with a small but devout group of followers. Profit is not the primary intent of zines, it's the spreading of knowledge that is not commonly for the mainstream.

Since the beginning of time people have been looking for ways to share their stories, with the invention of the printing press that dream became a reality for many. Now anybody with radical thinking and a different ideology than the general public could get their word out to hundreds, possibly thousands. Both Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin were independent publishers.

The origin of the word zine is unknown, but began to be used widespread during the early 1970's. During this time is when more zines began appearing, particularly in the underground sex and punk club scenes.

During the 1980's zines started gaining more of an artistic appeal. They even spawned their own subculture, zinesters. Zines during the 80's were very perverse and often covered obscure topics. Subjects often deemed too taboo for mainstream society.

However in the 1990's when the internet began to surge, zines then began to slowly disappear. Fortunately these same writers were able to gain a larger audience. This attention helped to turn a few self published writers into established authors.

Today zines are being embraced by a new generation, a generation that doesn't always trust the media and it's opinions. A new breed, who believes we need to be more self sufficient in our own needs. A group that doesn't want their information and mass media spoon fed to them.

Outta the way zines are available in traditional B & W form, and also as a color PDF you can print from home. Each zine consists of several out of the way places to visit. Each place will contain history, photos, and driving directions. Now get outta the way, 'cause we're going Outta the Way!

Find more zines on Etsy!
Learn more about zines and creating your own.

Gravity Hill in Numidia, Pennsylvania

The name of the town invokes mysticism, magic and mystery. The fact that only roughly 250 people live in this tiny village certainly doesn’t hurt the mystery. That makes the tiny town of Numidia pretty easy to miss.

There are a couple of reasons to visit this sleepy town. In fact if you’re a racing lover, this place will appeal to you even more. One of the biggest attractions Numidia is known for is its drag strip. Thousands of spectators flock every year to the Numidia Dragstrip to watch rocket fueled cars race down the ¼ mile speedway.

Yet there’s another spot in this mountain village that not many know about, but those that do get to test their own cars out on this magical spot. Instead of diving as fast as you can down a straightaway, here you do almost the exact opposite. With little help from you other than a gear shift, you can drive your car backwards up a hill, while in neutral on the rural road known as Gravity Hill. Locals have been challenging each other for years to defy gravity. Placing your car in neutral on the right spot gives the illusion that your car is rolling uphill on its own. There are numerous of these gravity hills located throughout the world. Most claim that there are magnetic pulls or supernatural powers at work. That’s why you’re able to defy gravity. The fact that this gravity hill is quite rural, yet easily found helps it to stand out above some others. It’s also mainly only known to the locals, and is not used to attract tourists, and being in a town called Numidia, well, that’s just pure magic.

Video ride on Gravity Hill

Lost Riverboat in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania

Marooned not too far from the wondrous attraction known as Roadside America lies an old riverboat looking oddly out of place. The dilapidated boat lies detached in an open field, far from the days of entertaining guests off the coast of New York and New Jersey. Originally the riverboat was built in Minnesota and was named the "Suwannee Belle." The riverboat spent slightly more then a decade elating tourists from all over the world. It was eventually decommissioned in 1991. After a failed attempt as a restaurant the "Suwannee Belle" sat in a New Jersey storage unit until 2003. At this point the riverboat was purchased and was finding a new home in rural Shartlesville, Pennsylvania. The original owner had planned to use the riverboat as a tiki bar, unfortunately his dreams never came to fruition. Since then it has sat in this remote field never fully living up to the potential it seemingly had just a few short years ago. The new owners of the nearby restaurant continue to pay homage to the lost riverboat, having named their venture the Riverboat Saloon.

Whistler's Mother Monument

"A Mother is the holiest thing alive," Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote. The folks of Ashland, Pennsylvania agree. They have an 8 feet tall bronze statue to prove it. During FDR's presidency, there was a movement by the government to help small towns build an identity for themselves, and Ashland wanted a part of this. In 1937 the Ashland Boys association wanted a way to honor their mothers. They'd get that help from the federal government. After planning and voting, they agreed it should be a bronze statue of James McNeil's famous 1871 painting, "Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter's Mother," also known as Whistler's Mother. If you've seen the painting with the artist's mother, Anna Matilda McNeil Whistler, her blank, humorless expression doesn't exactly exuberate "mother of the year." Unfortunately for McNeil's mother she never realized how infamous she would become, she died in 1881, before her son ever became famous. I bet she never thought there would be a monument made in her likeness, either.

Needless to say I guess this was the boy's epitome of motherhood. On September 4, 1938, two local mothers- the oldest in the town at the time, 88 and 91 years old- unveiled the eight-foot statue seated on a three ton slab of granite. The monument is recognized as the only one of it's kind in the country. If you're in the mood for a salute to motherhood unlike anything else, this is the monument for you.

Those Ashland boys sure are show-offs, this pales in comparison to the card I got my mother last year. By the way the Boy's Association is still very active in Ashland and every year they host a parade that attracts thousands!
For other nearby Outta the Way spots!