Between 1888 and 1921, Thurber coal mines and brickyards became a cosmopolitan town of nearly 10,000 people from all over Europe, to the dismay of pious Stephenville residents who shared Erath County. [Oral history has it that Erath County went dry by finding a loophole to avoid counting the Thurber vote]. “[Railway] Carloads of grapes would be shipped to Thurber from California and the Italian school kids with grapes in their lunch bags had many friends. The Italians used the leftover grapeskins from wine making to produce a ‘grappo’ whiskey which was about 170 proof. To the ‘grappo’ , sugar and water were added to produce a drinkable ethyl alcohol. With prohibition, the genuine ‘grappo’ whiskey was made with raisins which could be bought in wooden crates or in sacks from Angelo Reck’s store or other grocers. However, some whiskey was made from anything which fermented; peach skins and stones, apples and pears, all of which grew locally. The Minus ‘grappo’ whiskey differed from other bootleg whiskey in that most ‘other’ whiskey was made from grain and mash.”

“One prominent rancher near Thurber loved grappo but could not handle it. He would pass out ‘cold’ sometimes and not remember a thing for a day or two. He had a fear that in such a condition he might be mistaken for dead and be buried alive. While he was still living , he had a telephone line strung to the family burial plot in Davidson Cemetery. His will stipulated that a telephone be placed in his hand, inside his coffin, and if he did not call out within three days, he was sure to be dead and not just passed out.”

Leo s. Bielinski. “Beer, Booze, Bootlegging and Bocci Ball in Thurber-Mingus.” West Texas Historical Association Yearbook, 59 (1983), 75-89.

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 Colonel R.D. Hunter took over the management of the mines, known as Thurber after 1888, he lowered wages – which caused discontented miners to move to Mingus and to a tent city between Mingus and Thurber known as Striketown, then as Grant Town, then as Thurber Junction. The community was a thorn in the side of Thurber in other ways besides serving as a haven for radicals: low cost groceries were smuggled into Thurber to avoid company stores. Thurber Papers. Thurber Collection, Southwestern Collection, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas.