Thurber Turned Erath Coal and Clay Into a Company Town

Thurber once held perhaps 8,000 to 10,000 people in northwest Erath County. Mining began in 1886, and the Texas and Pacific Coal Company took over two years later. By 1918 to 1920, Thurber was Texas's principal bituminous-coal-mining town.

This was a company town with hard edges. The company fenced the property and built houses, schools, churches, stores, saloons, an opera house, a 200-room hotel, and a library. A stockade, armed guards, and barbed wire restricted labor organizers and other outsiders. In 1903, more than 1,600 workers joined the local United Mine Workers union.

Clay widened the story. A brick plant opened in 1897, covered five acres, and employed 800 men. Thurber brick paved old Bankhead Highway, Austin's Congress Avenue, Fort Worth's Camp Bowie Boulevard, and the Galveston Seawall.

Oil-burning locomotives weakened the coal business in the 1920s. The brick plant lasted until 1930, the general office until 1933, and company commissaries until 1935. Thurber was nearly a ghost town by the late 1930s.