Pennsylvania has the longest abandoned-places list of any state, and the most misread. Several of the headline sites are functioning parks and museums with opening hours. The genuinely derelict ones are fewer than the lists suggest.
What is actually there
Centralia is still a legal borough with a recorded 2020 population of 5. Most structures were demolished by the Columbia County Redevelopment Authority, PennDOT formally vacated the closed section of PA 61 in 2018, and the Graffiti Highway was buried under dirt berms in April 2020. No source in the last two years describes conditions on the ground, so treat anything you read about the current state of the fire as unconfirmed.
Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia is a museum, not an abandonment. It opens daily 10am to 5pm, takes roughly 220,000 visitors a year, and is kept as a stabilised ruin rather than left to rot.
Kinzua Bridge State Park is an operating state park. The viaduct a tornado dropped in 2003 was rebuilt in 2011 as the Kinzua Sky Walk. The park is open daily 8am to sunset, but the Sky Walk and the Kinzua Creek Trail have been closed since fall 2024 for a multi-year rehabilitation. Observation decks and some trails stay open.
Cascade Park in New Castle is a working city park. The old trolley park was converted in the 1980s, keeping the historic buildings and the restored entrance sign, and it now has pavilions, trails, a dance hall, playgrounds and an off-leash dog park.
Mount Moriah Cemetery in Philadelphia is an active burial ground kept up by volunteers, under Orphans’ Court receivership since 2014. It is one of the sites in our Philadelphia guide. Nearly 500 sets of remains were reinterred there in July 2024. In January 2026 a man was arrested for theft and desecration after more than 100 pieces of human remains were recovered from vandalised mausoleums.
The Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike is now The Old PA Pike Trail, owned by the Bedford-Fulton Joint Recreation Authority, with access points at Tannery Road, Pump Station Road and Oregon Road. The Rays Hill and Sideling Hill tunnels are still unrestored: a 2025 state grant funded a master plan for them.
What you can visit legally
Eastern State is ticketed. Kinzua Bridge State Park, Cascade Park and the Old PA Pike Trail are all open public land. Mount Moriah is open for visits and burials. Centralia is not a park and people still live in the borough.
Two honest condition notes: the turnpike tunnels are unlit, with deteriorated portals and falling concrete, and Centralia has unstable ground, sinkholes and carbon monoxide venting.
See the full list of abandoned places in Pennsylvania, with a verified status and check date for every site.