Thurber Historic District

Thurber, in northwestern Erath County, Texas, was a coal mining and brick-making town owned entirely by the Texas Pacific Coal Company. Founded in the late 1880s, it grew to about 10,000 residents by 1921, then shrank to a handful after railroads switched to oil and highways to asphalt. The district protects what remains: a 150-foot brick smokestack dated 1906, the old drug store, dry goods building, fire house, water filtration plant, three early houses including that of manager W.K. Gordon, a cemetery with over 3,000 graves, two man-made lakes, brick plant ruins and mine sites. Foundations of hundreds of company houses reveal the town's planned layout. Thurber is noted as the first all-union town in the nation, an early adopter of electricity and sewer systems, and a community drawing workers of at least 18 nationalities. Its remains are valued especially for archaeological and historical study.