Site of Snake Saloon

The saloon sat on the Palo Pinto side of a county line, but Thurber's bigger fight was over who ran the town. For years the Texas and Pacific Coal Company kept organizers out. In September 1903 more than 1,600 workers joined the United Mine Workers local, and on September 27 the company signed an agreement. Thurber became known as the only 100 percent closed-shop city in the nation. The Handbook of Texas says the hard part was organizing a work force of many ethnic groups, drawn from Italy, Poland, Britain and Ireland, among other places.

What the plaque says

Site of Snake Saloon Saloons were prominent in the life and history of Thurber and were often settings for union organizational efforts. The first Snake Saloon, located between the drugstore and the livery stable in the center of town, was famous for its massive horseshoe-shaped mahogany bar. After liquor sales were outlawed in Erath County in 1904, the Snake Saloon relocated just inside Palo Pinto County, 150 yards west of this site. The 40' x 120' building featured a bar as long as two train cars. The saloon closed in 1920 after passage of the federal prohibition law. (1995)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Rip at the Eastland County Courthouse — 24 mi
  A horned lizard in a glass-topped casket in the 1928 Eastland courthouse, the creature said to have come out alive from the old building's cornerstone after thirty-one years.
• Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway — 30 mi
  A Cross Timbers park on the old Camp Wolters grounds, built around a 1922 water-supply lake for a spa town, with Penitentiary Hollow's rock climbing and a 20-mile trailway.

More markers nearby

• Site of Hotel Knox and Thurber Mining Office — 0.4 mi
• Thurber — 0.5 mi
• New York Hill — 0.7 mi
• St. Barbara's Catholic Church — 0.7 mi