Learn about African-American coal miners Feb. 26 at Tarleton’s Gordon Center

Advertisement

 

STEPHENVILLE (February 13, 2017) — Researcher and author Tim Pinnick will share his insights on African-American coal miners at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 26, at Tarleton State University’s W.K. Gordon Center for Industrial History of Texas in the historic ghost town of Thurber.

Pinnick left his job as a public school teacher in 2003 to organize and develop material on African-American coal miners that he had accumulated for nearly a decade. That material includes information on African-American miners who worked for the Texas and Pacific Coal Company between 1888 and 1921, when Thurber was one of the biggest producers of bituminous coal in Texas and largest company town in the state.


A portrait of Bob Rogers and his family from the collection at the W.K. Gordon Center for Industrial History of Texas. Rogers worked in the Thurber coal mines.

Thurber’s coal-mining operations reached a peak around 1920, when the town had a population of some 10,000.

For more information on Pinnick’s presentation, call 254-968-1886 or email gordoncenter@tarleton.edu.

The W.K. Gordon Center, a Tarleton museum and research facility, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and from 1 to 4 p.m. Sundays. The center is located at Exit 367 on Interstate 20 between Fort Worth and Abilene. For more information, visit www.tarleton.edu/gordoncenter or the museum’s Facebook page.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.