Editing Centralia, Pennsylvania (section)

===Early history===
Many of the [[Native Americans in the United States|Native American]] tribes in what is now Columbia County sold the land that makes up Centralia to [[Province of Pennsylvania|colonial]] agents in 1749 for £500. In 1770, during the construction of the Reading Road, which stretched from [[Reading, Pennsylvania|Reading]] to Fort Augusta (present-day [[Sunbury, Pennsylvania|Sunbury]]), settlers surveyed and explored the land. A large portion of the Reading Road was developed later as [[Pennsylvania Route 61|Route 61]], the main highway east into and south out of Centralia.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last=DeKok |first=David |title=Fire Underground: The Ongoing Tragedy of the Centralia Mine Fire
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jzqS72q-v88C&q=Bast+Colliery+Theory&pg=PA22|isbn=9780762758241 |date=October 2009 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield }}</ref>

In 1793, [[Robert Morris (financier)|Robert Morris]], a hero of the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]] and a signatory of the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]], acquired a third of Centralia's valley land. When he declared bankruptcy in 1798, the land was surrendered to the [[First Bank of the United States|Bank of the United States]]. A Philadelphia based sea captain, trader and banker who had been born in France, named [[Stephen Girard]], purchased Morris' lands for $30,000, including 68 tracts east of Morris'. He had learned that there was [[anthracite]] coal in the region.<ref name=":0"/>

The Centralia coal [[Deposition (geology)|deposits]] were largely overlooked before the construction of the Mine Run Railroad in 1854. In 1832, Johnathan Faust opened the Bull's Head Tavern in what was called [[Roaring Creek Township, Pennsylvania|Roaring Creek Township]]; this gave the town its first name, Bull's Head. In 1842, Centralia's land was bought by the Locust Mountain Coal and Iron Company. Alexander Rae, a mining engineer, moved his family in and began planning a village, laying out streets and lots for development. Rae named the town Centreville, but in 1865 changed it to Centralia because the [[United States Post Office Department|U.S. Post Office]] already had a Centreville in [[Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania|Schuylkill County]]. The Mine Run Railroad was built in 1854 to transport coal out of the valley.<ref name="DeKok">{{cite book |title=Unseen Danger; A Tragedy of People, Government, and the Centralia Mine Fire |last=DeKok |first=David |year=1986 |publisher=[[University of Pennsylvania Press]] |location=Philadelphia |isbn=978-0-595-09270-3 |page=17}}</ref>