Thurber is a coal-mining ghost town in Erath County, Texas, United States, located 75 miles west of Fort Worth. It currently has an overall population of about twenty five.
Coal-mining operations began in Thurber in 1886 and reached a peak around 1920, when the town had a population of approximately 8,000 to 10,000, from more than a dozen nationalities, though Italians, Poles, and Mexicans predominated. At the peak, Thurber was one of the largest bituminous coal-mining towns in Texas. Established as a company town, the mining operations in Thurber were unionized in 1903 and Thurber became the first totally closed shop town in the country. The company that owned the town, the Texas and Pacific Coal Company, also produced vitrified paving bricks that were used throughout Texas and the southern half of the United States. By 1920, conversion of locomotives from coal to oil reduced demand and lowered prices and miners left the area through the 1920s. By 1935, in the midst of the Great Depression, Thurber was essentially a ghost town.[1][2]
Nationwide, there are several thousands of people whose roots go back to Thurber. There are several landmarks in Thurber such as The Thurber Cemetery (which has over a thousand graves), the restored St. Barbara's Catholic Church, a restored and furnished coal miner's house, New York Hill, and much more. A historic Thurber smokestack can clearly be seen from Interstate 20 near Thurber.[3] Also at Thurber is the W. K. Gordon Center for Industrial History of Texas, a museum containing information on historical Thurber (operated by nearby Tarleton State University),[4] as well as the historic Smokestack Restaurant, and the New York Hill Restaurant built on what was once the site of the town's Episcopal Church at the top of New York Hill.
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