Question: What Texas ghost town was once the state’s leading producer of coal?
Answer: Thurber, in Erath County. Mining operations began there in 1886. Because of the site’s isolation, most of the workers were low-paid immigrants. In 1888, the business was sold to the Texas and Pacific Coal Company, one of whose founders was H. K. Thurber of New York. The new owners built a company town and fiercely opposed unionization efforts, going so far as to build a barbed wire fence and post armed guards to regulate access to Thurber.
Over 1,600 workers finally succeeded in forming a union in 1903. By the end of World War I, the town’s population was perhaps as many as 10,000. Mining activity declined soon thereafter as trains began running on oil.
