All that is left of Thurber is marked by a red-brick smokestack that towers over I-20 about 75 miles west of Fort Worth. The town that was once on the cutting edge of technology has all but disappeared from the rolling hills of the West Texas prairie.
A new museum documents the history of the company town that once had a population of as many as 10,000 workers and their families. At the town’s peak, 14 mines supplied coal to the Texas and Pacific Railroad. Bricks manufactured from clay, dug from the nearby hills, paved roads around the state. For nearly 50 years the town was a beehive of activity. But almost as fast as it appeared on the map, it became a ghost town.
The W.K. Gordon Center for Industrial History of Texas covers the importance of coal, oil, and brick to the development of early Texas. The center is located on the site of the old brick factory, says Dr. T. Lindsay Baker, director of the facility. The center is a joint venture of the Texas Department of Transportation, Tarleton State University, Erath County, and Mrs. W.K. Gordon Jr.
Coal mining began in the area as early as 1886 and the railroad bought the property two years later to feed their locomotives. The remoteness of the location forced the company to recruit miners from around the world. At least 20 nationalities worked in the largest coal-mining operation ever established in Texas.
The company owned everything in town from the houses to the saloon that claimed to have the largest horseshoe-shaped bar in the world. One of the benefits the employees of the company enjoyed was becoming the first community in Texas to be serviced with electric power 24 hours a day.
Like most company towns of the period, Thurber was plagued by labor troubles. The strife became so heated that the company erected a barbed wire fence and hired armed guards to keep out union organizers. That all began to change gradually when William Knox Gordon arrived as the manager. He negotiated with the unions, and the town became the only 100% closed-shop town in the nation.
A person could literally live and die in Thurber and never need to leave town. The company that provided jobs also supplied churches, schools, entertainment, and recreation. It had the only library in the county. The opera house, the first with ceiling fans in Texas, attracted performers traveling between Dallas and California. Every week seven railroad cars of beer would arrive for the thirsty miners.
While Gordon was largely responsible for the town’s prosperity, he also contributed to its demise. In 1917, the manager led the discovery of the Ranger oil field 20 miles west of Thurber. The locomotives were being converted from coal to oil. The production that once filled 100 railroad cars a day with coal dropped to a trickle.
Thurber died on May 1, 1921. Unable to get wage concessions from the striking workers, Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company closed the mines. A strike of the railroad workers a year later further depleted the jobs in Thurber. The Depression closed the brick factory in 1930, followed by the company headquarters moving to Fort Worth. Thurber was no more.
Most of the buildings were moved to the surrounding oil fields or towns, Dr. Baker says. St. Barbara’s Church was moved to Mingus where it fell into disrepair. Gordon managed to save the smokestack from the power plant, the mercantile building, and his former residence.
Today, the Smoke Stack Restaurant serves hungry travelers in the general store that was once the center of town. The New York Hill Restaurant on the south side of the highway stands where professionals in Thurber once lived and offers a panoramic view of the city site.
Along with the museum, the Gordon Center has returned St. Barbara’s Church, a miner’s house, and a railroad car to the site and rebuilt the bocce courts where Italian workers would spend Sunday afternoons enjoying kegs of beer and lawn bowling. The Thurber Historic Association sponsors bocce tournaments every December and June. The exhibits open Tuesday through Saturday, 10am-4pm; and Sunday, 1-4pm. For more information, call 254/968-1886.
612th in a series. Day Trips, Vol. 2, a book of Day Trips 101-200, is available for $8.95, plus $3.05 for shipping, handling, and tax. Mail to: Day Trips, PO Box 33284, South Austin, TX 78704.
This article appears in February 28 • 2003.
