Portrait of John Lokitis, the youngest of 11 remaining residents of Centralia, Pennsylvania, a town destroyed by an underground mine fire.
Filmed over a period of five years in Centralia, Pennsylvania with interviews ranging from former residents to Congressmen, THE TOWN THAT WAS is an intimate portrait of John Lokitis, the youngest remaining Centralian, and his quixotic fight to keep alive a hometown that has literally disintegrated under his feet. His unbowed determination and steadfast refusal to acknowledge defeat reveal a man, a town, a region, and a way of life abandoned and forgotten.
