By Frank Chamberlain <\/p>\n\n\n\n
About 200 yards southeast, at the base of the hill, the Johnson brothers, W.W. (1843-1914) and Harvey E. (1852-1888) in the fall of 1886, sank the first coal shaft to a depth of 65 feet [Greenidge 16]. Their company was the \u201cJohnson Coal Mining Co.\u201d and the settlement around the mine was called \u201cJohnsonville\u201d[Spoede 53].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of labor and financial problems, W.W. Johnson sold his coaling interests to R.D. Hunter (1833-1902) and the Texas and Pacific Coal Co. in the fall of 1888, and the community was renamed \u201cThurber\u201d after one of the investors [Video: Boom Town To Ghost Town].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By providing a reliable coal supply to the railroads for 30 years, Thurber coal helped open up the Southwest when the railroads began their westward expansion [Bielinski x].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were 2500 coal miners of 18 nationalities, predominantly Italians, with Poles the second most prevalent group [Green, 5]. There were 15 mines which generally ran westward from Thurber [Hardman 64].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Miner\u2019s Strike of 1903 asserted the preeminence of the unions, and this marked the beginning of the labor union in the Southwest [Bielinski x, Video: Boom Town To Ghost Town]. With this strike, every worker in Thurber belonged to a union, and Thurber became the first totally unionized city in America [Hardman 56].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By 1921 most railroads had changed to oil and Thurber\u2019s coaling operations were severely curtailed; the last mine closing in 1926 [Greenidge 16].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After his Thurber coal venture, W.W. Johnson, \u201cThe Father Of The Texas Coal Industry\u201d, became involved in seven other coal mining operations, mainly in the nearby Lyra-Strawn area [Spoede 54, 76, 101, 115, 144, 146, 149].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thurber’s First Coal Mine By Frank Chamberlain About 200 yards southeast, at the base of the hill, the Johnson brothers, W.W. (1843-1914) and Harvey E. (1852-1888) in the fall of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":580,"parent":1450,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-fullwidth.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1699","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":null,"coauthors":[],"author_meta":{"author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/author\/kyle-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-3\/","display_name":"kyle"},"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 4 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on August 10, 2022","modified":"Updated on August 10, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on August 10, 2022 4:50 pm","modified":"Updated on August 10, 2022 4:51 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","featured_img":false,"series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1699\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}