The beginning of the end of Thurber came in 1921 when the company refused to meet miner’s union demands during a strike. Some coal was still mined until 1926 when the company closed. The brick kilns closed in 1930. The offices of Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company remained open until this notice appeared: “Removal notice. On July 1, 1933, the Thurber General Office . . . will be combined with its executive offices and will occupy the 23rd and 24th floor of the Fort Worth National Bank Building . . . ” During the summer of 1936, salvage crews removed water pipes from Thurber to be used in the construction of the Fondren Library at Southern Methodist University. Even trees and shrubs were dug up and moved to be sold elsewhere. An unknown number of houses were sold and moved to Stephenville.

Ken Jones, W.K. Gordon Center and the History of Thurber, W.K. Gordon Museum and Research Center for Industrial History of Texas, Tarleton State University; Mary Jane Gentry. Thurber: The Life and Death of a Texas Town. Master’s Thesis, University of Texas, August 1946.