Limbo, PA

Used as a hideout by both Grey Gremlin I and Grey Gremlin II, Limbo is an abandoned mining town in North Eastern Pennsylvania.

The last known inhabitants of Limbo left in 1937. The town was founded in 1901 and contained 250 houses, a bank, hotel, company store, post office, school, and two churches.

In 1934, an explosion in one of the underground coal mines dotting the surrounding hills ignited an exposed vein of coal. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, and it has continued to burn for over seventy years. Scientists estimate the fire, burning at depths of up to 300 feet and encompassing an eight-mile stretch of over 3,700 acres, has enough fuel to continue to burn for at least another 150 years. In 1950, Pennsylvania claimed eminent domain on all properties in the borough.

The town and the mines that surround it represent an environmental disaster and a major safety hazard. A pair of flooded mines have disgorged tens of thousands of gallons of red, acid-laced water, poisoning nearby streams. Sometimes the ground over shafts collapses, opening huge holes; the earth in the town itself has been weakened by the fire eating away beneath it, and at any moment the ground is subject to drop away into a deep, smoldering sinkhole.

The town, or rather the lightly wooded area where it once stood, is perpetually shrouded with grey-white coal-smoke, and sinkholes sometimes release pockets of carbon monoxide gas.