FIRST -- Burial in Thurber Cemetery, Thurber TX
N 32° 30.775 W 098° 24.997
14S E 554795 N 3597440
Little Eva Chapman, who was born and died on 21 Dec 1890, is the first burial in Thurber's historic multiethnic cemetery
Waymark Code: WMPTWE
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 10/20/2015
Views: 2
Little Eva Chapman was born and died on 21 Dec 1890. Nearly 100 years later, her grave was marked with a Thurber Historical Association sign, proclaiming her status as the first person buried in Thurber cemetery.
The state historic marker also records her burial as the first in the cemetery. It reads as follows:
"THURBER CEMETERY
Encompassing slightly more than nine acres, the Thurber Cemetery documents the multi-ethnic Thurber community. The graveyard was divided into three sections with separate entrances: Catholic, Protestant, and African American. There are more than 1,000 graves here, including almost 700 unmarked burials. The oldest tombstone is that of Eva Chapman, an infant who died in 1890. More than half the total graves are those of infants and children, a reflection of such epidemic diseases as scarlet fever, typhoid fever, diphtheria, and whooping cough.
Historic Texas Cemetery - 2000
Marker is Property of the State of Texas"
Thurber in its heyday was a busy boomtown for the Texas and Pacific coal company. Thousands of immigrants flooded here on the prairies of Erath County, Texas seeking opportunity in the coal mines, brick plant, dairy, and other industries needed to support a thriving community of about 10,000 people, all of whom lived in Texas and Pacific Coal Company housing and worked in Texas and Pacific Coal Company industries.
Thurber thrived between the years of 1885 to 1935, when thousands of emigrants and others poured into this area seeking opportunity in the coal mines that were opened to exploit a narrow vein of bituminous coal needed to fuel locomotives that crossed the plains. By the 1920s, most coal-fired locomotives have been converted to oil burners, and the rise of organized labor meant that workers wages are on the rise. These two factors doomed the town, and today it is a footnote to history and a place to stop for a beer and a burger on the I-20. As of the 200 census, only 8 people lived in Thurber.
For more on the rise and fall of Thurber see here:https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hnt21
FIRST - Classification Variable: Item or Event
Date of FIRST: 12/22/1890
More Information - Web URL: [Web Link]
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