Site of Thurber's First Coal Mine
Thurber, Erath County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Two hundred yards southeast of this site, at the base of the hill and at a depth of 65 feet, the first coal mine in this area was placed in operation by brothers William W. and Harvey E. Johnson. After Harvey's death in 1888, and because of labor and financial difficulties, William Johnson sold his mining interest to R. D. Hunter's Texas and Pacific Coal Company. Railroads provided a ready market for coal, and the company town of Thurber (named for investor H. K. Thurber) became completely unionized after a 1903 strike. The company employed 2,500 miners of 18 nationalities. (1995)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Thurber was one of the most thoroughly unionized company towns in the American Southwest, a vivid case of how immigrant labor, industrial coal, and organized workers shaped the Gilded Age economy before oil and abandonment left it a ghost town.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1880s, the rolling country of Erath County sat on the western edge of settled Texas. It was ranch land, dotted with small farms and crossroads communities. Something valuable lay under the hills, though: seams of bituminous coal, in a state that had very little of it.
The timing mattered. Railroads were pushing west across Texas after the Civil War, and steam locomotives burned fuel at an enormous rate. Coal that had to be hauled in from other states was expensive. A reliable local supply, close to the tracks, could be worth a fortune.
This was the heart of the Gilded Age. Industry was growing quickly, investors in distant cities were putting money into mines and rail lines, and workers were starting to organize against the companies that employed them. Across the country, coal fields became some of the fiercest battlegrounds between labor and capital, and this corner of Texas was part of that story.
People & events
The story starts small, with two brothers. William W. and Harvey E. Johnson opened the area's first coal mine at the foot of a hill a short walk from this marker, sinking a shaft 65 feet down to reach the coal. It was a risky, hands-on venture, typical of the frontier enterprises that often came before big corporate operations.
It didn't last in their hands. Harvey died in 1888, and William faced labor trouble and money problems. He sold his mining interest to R. D. Hunter's Texas and Pacific Coal Company. With outside capital behind it, the company built a whole town around the mines and named it Thurber, after investor H. K. Thurber.
Thurber was a company town, which meant the company owned the houses and stores and much of daily life. Workers came from around the world to dig coal. The marker counts 2,500 miners of 18 nationalities, a remarkable mix for a small Texas town. Relations between workers and management were often tense, and in 1903 a strike changed everything. After it, Thurber became completely unionized, a striking result in an era when many companies fought unions with every tool they had.
Its place in the American story
Thurber shows the national story of industrial America playing out in a place many people wouldn't expect. Coal, railroads, immigrant labor and union organizing are usually tied to Pennsylvania or Appalachia. Here they came together on the Texas plains.
The town's workforce also reflects the great wave of immigration that remade the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Workers speaking many languages lived side by side, did dangerous work, and eventually organized together. A town where this happened is a small portrait of the country's industrial working class.
Thurber also shows how fast an industrial town can rise and fall. When railroads and industry moved from coal to oil in the early twentieth century, the demand that had built the town faded. Places like it emptied out across America, leaving ghost towns as reminders of how closely a community's fate could depend on a single resource.
If you visit
Stand at the marker and look southeast toward the base of the hill. That's where the story began, with two brothers and a shaft cut 65 feet into the ground. There's little to see of that first mine today, so let your imagination fill in the headframe, the mule carts, and the sound of the work.
Thurber is now a ghost town, and that's part of its appeal. What remains is quiet and scattered. As you walk or drive around, look for surviving structures and traces of the old company town, and think about the thousands of people from many countries who once made this one of the busiest places in the region.
Thurber fits easily into a road trip across north-central Texas. Combine it with other small-town stops in the area for a day about how coal, rail and later oil shaped the state. Bring water, wear sturdy shoes, and give yourself time to linger. Places like this reward a slow visit.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William W. Johnson
- · Harvey E. Johnson
- · R. D. Hunter
- · H. K. Thurber
Related events
- · Thurber strike of 1903
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
Thurber
Thurber, TX
Thurber was Texas' most important coal town for three decades. After coal was 'discovered' here in 1886, the Texas and Pacific Coal Company built a bustling company town of 10,000 people whose mines fueled the state's railroads. Engineer William K. Gordon pushed daily output to 3,000 tons — and in 1917 helped discover the nearby Ranger oil field, an irony that helped doom coal as railroads switched to oil. The last mine closed in 1921 and Thurber emptied, though millions of tons of coal still lie underground.
Home of Stephen Bethel Strawn
Strawn, TX
Tennessee-born Stephen Bethel Strawn came to Palo Pinto County in 1859 as one of its first settlers, married the next year, and served in the state troops guarding the frontier during the Civil War. He built this house in the mid-1870s and in 1880 founded the town of Strawn to entice the Texas & Pacific Railway through the area. A rancher, landowner, banker, and investor in local coal mining, he embodied the many roles a frontier town-founder played.
Bankhead Highway through Eastland County
Ranger, TX
The early automobile spurred a national road-building push, and Senator John H. Bankhead's 1916 Federal Aid Road Act channeled matching funds to states to upgrade their highways. The resulting Bankhead Highway ran coast to coast from Washington, D.C., to San Diego, entering Eastland County over the notorious "Big Hill" that challenged early cars. Through Ranger, Olden, Eastland, and Cisco the route passed oil-strike sites, a WPA roadside park, brick-paved stretches from Thurber, and Conrad Hilton's first hotel. Much of it now follows Highway 6 and the I-20 access roads.