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1953 Map of Ashland

Name: 1953 Topographic Map of Ashland
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1956
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1956

About this map

The Mahanoy Valley serves as the industrial corridor for this 1953 survey, dominated by the anthracite-rich landscapes of the Ashland and Girardville areas. Large mine dumps and tailings flank the settlements of Centralia and Aristes, illustrating the heavy imprint of coal extraction on the terrain between Locust Mountain and Broad Mountain. The transportation network is defined by the competing lines of the Reading and Lehigh Valley railroads, which thread through narrow gaps to service the collieries.

Local life is recorded in features such as the Immaculate Heart Academy and a Drive-in Theater near the Ashland Reservoir. While Centralia appears here as a thriving borough with a visible grid and a Centralia Fire Tower, the map also documents smaller patches like Byrnsville and Germantown, providing a critical record of these communities before later environmental shifts altered the region's geography.