Site of Thurber Big Lake and Dairy
Thurber, Erath County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1891, a 20-acre "Little Lake" was built south of the Thurber townsite to supply water to the community. It soon proved inadequate, however, and five years later a 150-acre "Big Lake" was constructed here about a mile southeast of town. Texas and Pacific Coal Company president R. D. Hunter organized a hunting and fishing club at the Big Lake for company executives and staff. Water from the lake irrigated company-owned farmland in the valley below, and provided water for the nearby Thurber Dairy. The dairy's twin silos were still visible decades later. (1995)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
To slake the thirst of the booming company town of Thurber, the Texas and Pacific Coal Company built a 20-acre "Little Lake" in 1891, then a far larger 150-acre "Big Lake" here five years later when the first proved too small. Company president R. D. Hunter turned the Big Lake into a hunting and fishing club for executives, while its water irrigated company farmland and supplied the nearby Thurber Dairy, whose twin silos stood as landmarks for decades.
Why it matters
The lake and dairy reveal how a self-contained industrial company town engineered its own water, food, and recreation—an all-encompassing corporate world typical of turn-of-the-century mining and manufacturing communities.
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Related people
- · R. D. Hunter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
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.
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.
New York Hill
Thurber, TX
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.