New York Hill
Thurber, Erath County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This area of Thurber developed after 1917, when the Texas and Pacific Coal Company expanded into the burgeoning oil industry following W. K. Gordon's discovery of the Ranger oil field. Renamed in 1918, the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company brought staff for its new oil division to Thurber from New York. Thirty-one houses were built here on New York Hill. Church Street climbed the hill from town, as did sidewalks and brick steps, some of which were still visible decades later. The buildings on the hill were removed in the 1930s when the company town was dismantled. (1995)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This hilltop neighborhood took shape after 1917, when the Texas and Pacific Coal Company followed W. K. Gordon's Ranger oilfield strike into the petroleum business and renamed itself the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company. To house staff transferred from New York for the new oil division, the firm built thirty-one homes here on what became New York Hill, reached by brick steps and sidewalks climbing from town. When the company town of Thurber was dismantled in the 1930s, the buildings came down, leaving only traces on the slope.
Why it matters
Thurber was one of America's most complete company towns, and its rise on coal and fall as oil moved on captures the boom-and-bust life cycle of the industrial West.
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Related people
- · W. K. Gordon
Related events
- · Ranger oilfield discovery
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Thurber's First Coal Mine
Thurber, TX
Just southeast of this spot, brothers William and Harvey Johnson sank the first coal mine in the area, tapping seams 65 feet down. After Harvey's death and mounting financial trouble, the operation passed to R. D. Hunter's Texas and Pacific Coal Company, which grew the surrounding company town of Thurber into a fully unionized settlement employing some 2,500 miners of eighteen nationalities. Railroads hungry for fuel made the coal valuable, and a landmark 1903 strike cemented the union's hold.
Site of Thurber Brick Plant
Thurber, TX
In the coal-and-clay company town of Thurber, general manager W. K. Gordon spotted opportunity in the local shale and convinced Texas and Pacific Coal Company to open a brick plant in 1897. Powered by a Corliss steam engine crews called "Old Hunter," the five-acre works employed some 800 men at its peak. Its bricks paved marquee stretches of Texas—Congress Avenue in Austin, Camp Bowie Boulevard in Fort Worth, and even the Galveston Seawall—before the plant fell silent in 1931.
St. Barbara's Catholic Church
Thurber, TX
The coal-mining town of Thurber drew immigrants of eighteen nationalities, most of them Catholic, and in 1892 the coal company built them a church at the foot of graveyard hill. First called St. Thuribus, it was renamed St. Barbara's for the patron saint of miners, and its Hunter Academy school ran from 1894 to 1923. When Thurber was dismantled in the 1930s the building was moved two miles to Mingus, then returned home in 1993 by local preservationists.
Whitehead Cemetery
Mingus, TX
The Whitehead Cemetery recalls the African American community that lived in the company town of Thurber in the early 20th century. When the Texas and Pacific Coal and Oil Company moved its offices to Fort Worth in 1933, several Black families stayed on in their company-owned homes. Albert Whitehead and fellow residents established this burial plot south of the old town square as a convenient alternative to the Thurber Cemetery, with the first documented burial—Sarah Grant—in 1943. Tarleton State University now maintains it as part of its industrial-history center grounds.