By John Luciew, pennlive.com (TNS)
Second of two parts (Read Part One here)
Not every dying town can be saved.
Girardville, a shell of itself in Schuylkill County coal country, could go either way.
Will something new rise from the coal dust? Or will Girardville continue its descent — a crumbling cautionary tale of what happens when a community loses its reason to exist?
A huge chunk of precious anthracite sits on a pedestal at one end of Main Street. It’s a formal memorial to Girardville’s birthright, and a constant reminder.
The town literally worshiped coal — and for good reason.
Life in the mines was never easy. But there was a time, not long ago, when tiny Girardville seemed to have it all.
“We had skating rinks. We had hardware stores. We had shoe stores,” former Mayor Michael Zangari said. “I mean, anything you needed back then. They had dairies; they had butcher shops — anything. There was a lot of pride.”
But Girardville couldn’t stave off the rest of the world.
In the 1950s and ’60s, young people left in droves for college and a better life. Technology and a declining market for coal did the rest.
Ties that bound people to Girardville across multiple generations were broken.
“We lost that generational arc,” said Zangari, whose own roots here go four generations deep. “When you start losing that next generation, you lose the pride.”
The town trended downward ever since.
For Zangari, rock bottom arrived when the Catholic Diocese shuttered Immaculate Heart Elementary School on Main Street.
The ex-mayor was in fourth grade but remembers it like yesterday. The death of his grandfather the very next day etched the double loss forever in his mind.
“They announced on March 15th, 2006, it was closing. My [grand] pop, who was a big supporter of it, died the 16th. That’s why I’ll never forget,” Zangari said.
With the school shuttered, a pronounced absence pervaded the town. The joyous cacophony of 150 school kids laughing and playing at recess was suddenly silenced.
A community’s spirit was broken, Zangari said.
“It took the life that Girardville had left. All that excitement and energy and positivity,” he said. “I would love for my son to be able to go to school in his hometown, but that option’s gone.”
The school building fell into disrepair and was demolished.
The vacant lot stands as a gaping wound, never to be healed.
Changing of the guard
Zangari spent four years attempting to lead Girardville back as mayor. His main motivation was his now-3-year-old son.
“The theory I live with is if I’m going to try and live here, I’m going to try and make it better for my son as he grows up,” he said. “I want him to be proud of where he’s from.”
Zangari said he did his best, but to little effect.
“I think we kind of stayed stagnant. Our older population is passing away,” he said. “We don’t see a lot of investment coming in. We don’t see people putting up anything new. The buildings are falling down around us faster than we can do something about it. You feel helpless sometimes. How are we going to fix this?”
Meanwhile, controversial decisions like disbanding the town’s police department and closing two public parks resulted in sharp criticism, Zangari said.
“You’re kind of between a rock and a hard place every move you make,” he said. “Girardville is struggling. We take one step forward and two steps back. We are losing faster than we are gaining. We had tremendous ideas. The money’s just not there.”
His exasperation is unmistakable. But Zangari isn’t writing off Girardville. He’s just done with the negativity.
“It’s toxic,” he said. “We deal with criticism all the time. When it’s not even close to factual, it becomes very frustrating. People think every local official is corrupt or out for themselves.”
This is why he declined to run for another term, leaving office in December.
These days, Zangari is still focused on the future but in a different way. The former Eagle Scout is leading the town’s first Cub Scout pack in decades.
“In June we kicked off, and we had 34 scouts sign up, which is mind-blowing in today’s world,” he said. “We have scouts coming from Ashland, Frackville, Lavelle, Butler Township — all our surroundings. The kids are laughing, having a good time. It’s refreshing. It’s not negative. It’s not a bunch of complaining.”
As for Girardville’s fate, Zangari said he’s leaving that to a relatively new, young group on borough council and in the mayor’s office.
“They’re fresh; they bring ideas; and they bring that drive,” he said. “These guys coming in have some great ideas.”
Just don’t expect miracles, the outgoing mayor advised.
“The town’s been dilapidating for 50 years. It’s not going to change overnight.”
‘Pushing forward’
One member of the trio representing Girardville’s future is borough secretary/treasurer Harley Ingersoll. She and her husband moved here four years ago from the Philadelphia suburbs.
Like many newcomers, Ingersoll said her family came for the low cost of living. They stayed after finding a community.
“We built a completely crazy support system,” Ingersoll said. “It was cheap living, but it’s been the community that’s kept me and my husband here. We have completely integrated.”
Girardville’s new mayor, David Brennan, was all but drafted into the position. When no one stepped up to be on the ballot in last year’s election cycle, his large base of family, relatives and friends talked him into running as a write-in.
Fresh from taking the oath of office at the beginning of the year, the 42-year-old is all in.
“I’m always willing to push forward and try and do the right thing for our community,” Brennan said. “So, I just thought it would be the greatest idea to just give it a shot and see where it goes.”
While he doesn’t come to office with an elaborate platform or detailed agenda, Brennan said he’s embracing change, most especially the town’s shifting demographics.
He likes that new residents coming in from bigger cities find Girardville “nice and quiet” – despite the hundreds of tri-axle coal trucks rumbling up and down Main Street all day long.
“It doesn’t even faze them because they’re used to the noise in the bigger cities,” Brennan marveled.
Ingersoll, a relative newcomer herself, interjected: “I can attest to that. Trucks don’t bother us.”
Brennan said his job over the next four years will be giving both the newcomers and longtime residents a reason to stay.
None of the town’s new leaders have defined it yet, but they’re looking for a community project to symbolize Girardville’s momentum toward a new future.
Zangari suggested the town’s “rainy day fund,” buoyed by savings from disbanding the police force, could provide the down payment.
The former mayor agreed a well-chosen investment could be the catalyst Girardville desperately needs.
“I think once the ball starts rolling where you start to create a community that your residents are proud to be from, they invest back in turn,” Zangari said.
When it comes to redevelopment, there can be addition by subtraction, too.
“When they start to see properties that have been falling down or causing damage ripped down and now there’s grass, it’s better than looking at a building falling down,” Zangari added. “It’s only grass, but it’s green. It grows.”
As for the town’s coal mining past, the only thing that should carry forward is the tenacious, never-say-die spirit that inspired the national labor moment.
The rest should be relegated to the ash heap of history, the new officials said.
“We don’t know how to give up,” said 33-year-old David Willis, who’s been on council for about a year. “It’s just not in our vernacular. Let this fuel Girardville’s next chapter. But leave everything else behind.”
Empanadas and laundromats
For Willis, the future rests with the new, mostly minority residents moving in. The task ahead is to involve them in the community and its governance, while making it easier to invest and open businesses in town.
“I can’t tell you how much I would love to be able to eat empanadas in my own damn town,” Willis quipped. “We need to be more progressive about things.”
He pointed to nearby Shenandoah, which appears to have embraced its rising Spanish-speaking population — and its culture.
“There’s, what? Five Mexican restaurants up in Shenandoah now,” Willis said.
By contrast, he calls Girardville a “food desert.” It’s down to two restaurants, including the pizza shop where Willis works. The town’s only store specializes in soda, energy drinks, skill games, lottery tickets and cigarettes — not fresh vegetables.
Another item on Willis’ wish list: “I would kill for a laundromat in this town,” he said.
Willis blamed Girardville’s old ways and outdated mindsets for marginalizing the town’s incoming minorities instead of harnessing their energy and entrepreneurism.
Demographically, Girardville has been utterly transformed in recent years.
Based on the most recent borough records, officials peg the demographic breakdown as 70% white, 25% Hispanic (Mexican, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rican) and 5% Black.
“I don’t know how exactly they find us, but they come here,” Willis said. “And it’s a shame because they’re not represented on council.”
For Girardville to progress, this must change, he added. So must certain outmoded mindsets.
“Unfortunately, in this town, you have to be somebody who’s been in town for years. A lot of them are Spanish-speaking. So, there’s a language barrier, too,” he said.
Then there’s the ugly side of Girardville’s stubborn ways: racism, Willis added.
“There’s all of these prejudice things that come along with somebody who is from the Dominican Republic or Mexico moving in next door to you. And that’s just simply not the way the world works,” he said
In short, one of Girardville’s biggest obstacles is itself and these self-imposed limitations.
“I would like to see them get more involved and more intertwined with us,” Willis said of minority newcomers.
Inclusion must be the town’s first building block.
Turning the page
By clinging to the past, Girardville has followed coal into the abyss.
“I think that so many people did focus on what Girardville was in the past, and by trying to preserve that, they ended up letting it fall,” Willis said. “The past needs to stay in the past.”
Even in a town owing its entire existence to coal, time has come to turn the page.
Back at the Girardville Historical Society, President Rob Krick has carried on the work of preserving the town’s coal-dominated heritage. Artifacts are encased in glass and cataloged in countless photo albums. More than a century and a half of history fills dusty shelves lining the walls from floor to ceiling.
But Krick’s also a clear-eyed realist.
Everything coal gave to Girardville has been stripped away many times over. The disastrous fallout — economic, environmental and societal — has been smothering the town ever since.
As for the history he tends, Krick said its relevancy has faded along with the town. Its audience is people who are no longer alive or who have moved away.
Their story started with desperate immigrants flocking to Girardville for jobs in the mines.
It holds little meaning for newcomers moving here today.
“It’s going to be a totally different town,” Krick mused of Girardville’s future. “Different faces. Different nationalities. And they’ll start their own history, hopefully. They’ll write a different history. And it will be quite different.”
In a very real way, Girardville has come full circle.
The dusty, dying coal town has become a blank slate — bleak as it is.
The question is, will anyone build upon it?
Zangari is hopeful but dubious.
He notes how many newcomers mispronounce the town’s name. They call it “Girardsville.”
“It always just makes me chuckle. They add an ‘s,’ ” Zangari said. “If you’re from Girardville, that would bother the heck out of you.”
So far, few have embraced the town whose name they mispronounce, he added.
“You just don’t see where they’re planting a flag and they’re saying, ‘This is where I’m from,’ ” Zangari said.
At the same time, they represent the town’s biggest hope.
Perhaps, its last.
“You could come here and start pretty much whatever you wanted because there’s not a lot here,” Zangari said. “If these newer folks to town do want to invest in their community and be a part of it, they’re the perfect ones. They get to create a community that welcomes everyone, and it’s better for everyone.”
The ex-mayor who gave Girardville his all but fell short paused, then added:
“That’s where I stay optimistic.”
PennLive collaborated with RealClearPennsylvania in shaping the concept and identifying sources for this project.
©2026 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit pennlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
