A typical site in Frackville's alleys. The funny thing is that they refer to most of their streets as "alleys."

When I tell people about the city where my mother’s side of the family grew up and where my grandmother still resides, I often get blank stares.  Occasionally, I will get a “wait… really?” but most of the time people don’t believe that a city likes this actually exists.  I do find this surprising because Frackville actually has an article on Wikipedia, which means it has to exists, right?

The single street that makes up downtown Frackville. The rest of the city pretty much looks like this, except without the sidewalks.

While its entry on Wikipedia sounds rather uplifting, I find Frackville itself to be a rather uninspiring borough.  First, a little background on where it is:  Frackville sits in the heart of the coal mining region of the state of Pennsylvania, though it never actually had a mine in it.  It functioned more like a bedroom community for Pottsville (south), Ashland (west), or even Hazelton (northeast).  Once a center for the bustling anthracite coal industry and the birth of one of the earliest workers unions in the country, Frackville is now a far cry from what it previously had been.  Since the decline of the coal mining industry – caused mostly to the phasing out of the steam engine, more stringent environmental regulations, and demanded increased compensation due to extremely hazardous working conditions – the entire region has been left scarred with strip mines, and ravaged by unemployment.

Frackville now seems to consist entirely of older women from the depression era who do not believe in trees on public streets, sidewalks in general, and underground utilities.  The city in general is completely unkempt, the downtown is nonexistent, and everything functions as if it were frozen in the 1950s.  So, why do I know about this place?  My mother grew up here.  I would travel here nearly every summer while growing up, and my grandmother STILL lives there, where she talks about how Lithuanian people have issues, teachers don’t do anything and thus don’t need to get paid, and how people no longer have any common decency towards anyone else.  She really is a lovely woman (seriously!), but she is the embodiment of everything that has happened in that region and to that age group.  Kind of like a relic, or a time capsule, or something.  Reading this again, it sounds terrible, but it really isn’t!

The computer store in downtown Frackville.

Only a few other things that define Frackville is the Free Public Library.  This seems extremely straight forward except for the fact that they require a $1.50 payment per book that you intend to check out.  In addition to that fine establishment, there is the local computer store – obviously something added after the 1950s – that sells really old computers at really high prices.  You’ll also find Louie’s, a breakfast joint that is never full yet manages to sell full breakfast meals for about $2.00 a plate.  I was told by my grandmother that no one would ever pay more than 50 cents for their coffee, thus a restaurant must offer food that cheap to stay in business.  Definitely backwards when it comes to most business models as far as I can tell, but it makes perfect sense.

You want how much for how little?

All in all, I was glad that the drive across the country ended me visiting my grandmother, but I wish she didn’t live in Frackville.  She is awesome, her house is amazing, but the city is… well, go there for yourself.  Maybe it will improve the area a litte.