The town of Mingus was founded by a woman of that name in 1856. The settlement began to grow with the opening of nearby Johnson mines. When Col. R.D. Hunter took over the management of the Thurber mines in 1888, he lowered wages which caused discontented miners to move to Mingus and to a tent city between Mingus and Thurber known as Striketown, later as Grant Town, then as Thurber Junction. The community was a thorn in the side of Mingus officials as a haven for radicals and as a source of low cost groceries that were smuggled into Thurber to avoid company stores. In the 1890s when Erath officials managed to discount the Thurber vote, Mingus was across the county line and became the only place to get alcohol until Erath County went wet a couple of years ago.

Thurber Papers, Thurber Collection, Southwestern Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.