Rural Texas Historic landmarks The Oldest Cable Bridge in America and Abandoned Coal Mine Town

all right guys we're crossing the Biloxi River where you are coming into block down there's not much in this town but I was as I was reading I realized that there's a they call it a suspension bridge was actually a cable Bridge somewhere in this little community that uh it's rumored to be the oldest in the United States so before we check out the town and see all that has the offer we're gonna go to this bridge and have a look at it as you can see as we're coming into town there's just not much here some old historic buildings back when it was fired in a little town there is quite a bit of residents in this area like I said it's within commuting distance to Dallas Fort Worth area yeah I think it's got one gas station in town looks like a couple of junk shops [Music] not much else so we're gonna go check out this bridge uh lived in this area most of my life and I never knew this thing was here but uh we'll see it together for the first time I suppose says I'm about one minute from it to check it out together yeah you never know what you're gonna find out here in the country I grew up swimming in the Biloxi River but it was a couple counties over we're actually in Erath County now I'll drop a link to the the bridge it looks like this is the bridge and it is now closed we're gonna Park here and uh see what we can find there is a historical marker so we'll have a look at that I'll show you a picture so you can read it for yourself but yeah look at this Old Bridge I never knew it was here this bridge was built for wagon Crossings back in the late 1880s early 1900 1890s area so let's close the foot traffic I can't go on it there's a cool Old Bridge could you imagine having to drive across this I have no idea how many years it was here before they built this one I'm gonna try to walk down and let you guys have a look at it but it's pretty narrow so hopefully I don't get ran over and trying to do this this Biloxi River in case you didn't know this River's famous over in Glen Rose area for dinosaur footprints when the river runs dry you're able to see the footprints if you've never been there that is definitely worth the visit I actually grew up in that area and spent many Summers out in that Park it's a dinosaur Valley State Park then over in Glen Rose I've also got Fossil Rim yeah check out this Old Bridge I'm gonna drive across that water's pretty low right now you can see that there are times it gets to raging I would have never known we got the nation's oldest cable bridge in my backyard until I happen to have a look yep there it is guys pretty interesting some Bluffdale Texas like I said I'll drop a some coordinates if you guys want to come and see this I highly suggest you pay attention to the sign and not walk on that because I cables are still there but it's starting to Sag pretty good all right guys we'll go uh take a run through the town and see what we can find there you can see a low water crossing looks like probably where people used to play in the water or maybe even get around it before this uh bridge that I'm currently standing almost built over in Glen Rose there's still several Crossings where you got to drive through the river with no Bridges uh it's just not enough traffic in some places to justify Bridges well I enjoyed seeing that old bridge I didn't know it was there a funny part of this story is I grew up around this area and really didn't know if they all had that I've always heard of stories of a swinging bridge around somewhere around Glen Rose they try to see if we can find that one actually grew up in that town and uh didn't really ever fine I didn't go looking for it either but so we'll take a drive through some of these neighborhoods guys it's uh it's kind of Hit or Miss really you've got some old houses that have been around not really getting taken care of and then there's multi-million dollar houses out in what they call a Mountain Lakes or something the development that they have out here you can see it this time gas price here is uh 2.99 a gallon or 429 a gallon for diesel we'll take a drive down this town you can see the old gas station over there is just not much to see there's a little old antique shop but uh I'll drive through down this road for a minute actually let's that there's some history about that looks like the school not sure exactly what size School District this is but it's small let's say 1A to a probably play some six-man football if I was guessing looks like they got an old Tabernacle here that uh probably doesn't see much use these days but I'll take a look of Zillow and see what the average housing prices is my guess it used to be pretty affordable around this area this last couple years though real estate hasn't went through the roof so I'm assuming it's probably in the 300 to 400 000 range if you wanna newer built house on a little bit of land um they'll tell about some of these older places myself were maybe something that's worth a fortune and maybe some that uh you can still pick up some fixer-uppers in this town for sure so yeah guys that's pretty much Bluffdale there's uh there's just not a whole lot to see in this town still thriving Community plenty of people live here but just not a whole lot of Commerce I guess if you wanna drive to work or work on a ranch locally you might be able to make a living doing that now well of 11's you have to be determined Ranch hands usually do not get paid all that well unfortunately and they sacrifice a lot of time Blood Sweat for Lisa major landowners but they do get some free housing so guys that looks about like the neighborhood in uh inside of town I'm not going to drive out to the Housing Development we all have those we know what those look like I don't know about you but I couldn't afford to live in one anyhow all right here's our welcome to Bluffdale sign historical markers established in the 1870s yeah it's a slow little town I'm just about there there is a cemetery on top of this hill for the town of Thurber they've got a gate I'm not real sure if I'm allowed to drive with that or am I supposed to walk a boat or probably and now so uh it's one of them duty deals I believe you gotta right away to the cemetery when I'm in my wife's car so I'm not real sure there is the smokestack I believe they made bricks here uh but this was all Coal Mine town everything was owned by the mine I guess all the houses they paid the script and they didn't pay cash um so they have General Store it's where these guys would work and they'd have to buy their supplies from the company they weren't for so they're never really able to get ahead but they did have a place to live and I believe there was a school and there was a whole Community here I'm just not sure where it went so guys this is the smoke stacking Thurber where the coal mining town used to be um might have to do a voiceover on this one it was really windy out there and the audio did not work out too well what you're seeing there is a small Firehouse looks like it's been restored it's full of um yes private belongings inside so I'm not going to fill them inside the windows on that first spec I don't want anybody damaging that when I'm looking at there is the old smokestack restaurant and then there's a little antique store there so Thurber was a unincorporated Community also known as a first electrified fully electrified city in Texas I believe it was low it's located about 75 75 miles west of Fort Worth it was between 1988 and 18 19 21 was one of the largest producers of the business call in Texas and the largest company town in the state with a population of over ten thousand a population of the community is 48 per the 2010 census so it's pretty much a ghost down there's not much left here besides this Smoke Stack and then there's some small rooms that uh I'll film just in a few minutes um so the coal mining operations began Thurber in 1886 and reached the peak around 1920 when the town had a population of approximately eight thousand to ten thousand for more than a dozen nationalities though Italian poles and Mexicans pre-dominated at the peak Thurber was one of the largest coal mining towns in Texas an established company town the mining operations Thurber were unionized in 1903 in Third River became the first totally closed shop town in the country the Texas and Pacific Coal Company was not owned by the Texas and Pacific Railway but it laid near its line and provided the trains that the company needed with much fuel the Texas and Pacific Coal Company created a subsidiary company the Texas Pacific Mercantile manufacturing company to operate its Mercantile operation with company-run retail outlets like the grocery Dry Goods hardware and drug stores which I imagine that's probably over there where the uh the restaurant is nowadays as well as saloons and other establishments the company that owned the town the Texas and Pacific Coal Company also produce virtual bertrified Paving bricks that were used throughout Texas in the southern half of the United States by 1920 conversion of the locomotives from coal and all reduced to the man and lowered the prices and the miners left the area through the 1920s however the Ranger oil field was about I think about 15 miles west of here and oil was discovered there which you'll be able to see the the sign up here says evolution of an oil company so they were able to um pivot to that the Texas old boom and the company rebranded itself as a Texas Pacific Coal and oil company and eventually the Texas Pacific oil company Nationwide there's there seems to be several thousand people whose roots go back to Thurber there are several landmarks of Thurber which is the Thurber Cemetery we didn't visit that one but we do visit the Davidson Cemetery to show you the architecture of the brake work that was done there um they say there's still 127 million I think cubic feet or cubic pounds of coal still left of mine at a future date if the price was to ever come back I'm assuming uh this this Coal Company or whole company Stones the mineral rights to the area um let me see there's a restored and furnished Coal Miner's house on New York Hill I'm much more and much more it says historic Thurber Smoke Stop can clearly be sent from Interstate 20 near Thurber so if you're ever traveling down Interstate 20 in between Fort Worth and Abilene or are coming from West Texas going east you'll definitely see this right off the interstate it is definitely worth a stop in checking out um you're not going to be able to see it but all the way up there at the top it is uh Mark 1908 on the smokestack so could you imagine building this thing back in 1908 um this building here didn't have any labels on it so I'm assuming and I could be completely wrong but I imagine this was probably the power station for the town um it's just a shell of itself now the windows are gone the roof's gone just an old brick building there so I'm just walking around the area kind of looking at what I can see um just caught a glimpse of the firehouse but yeah this whole building's standing the test of time I wish somebody would restore it um there's private property signs all over the building so I didn't trespass me in Texas they I take property rights pretty serious here so I did not want to get in trouble for that um I did notice little holes in the ground they kind of went down deep I don't know if that might be a coyote or Rabbit Hole or you know just some sort of Critter living down on that one all the coal mines were underground shafts uh I have no idea where they were located at though other side of the fence is guess we'd call that the east side there's some old rooms out here in the woods too where Nature's completely taking them back some down trees and see if I can get past the underwear you guys might be able to see it looks like footing of an old building pretty good pit right there like I said I don't know where the mines are but evidently there was 17 of them around um and all of them were underground so that may be the interest one I have no idea I'd be lying over there I don't know if you can see three of the trees or not but there's more breaks to the building a lot of history that Nature's taking over um so yeah we're looking let's see on Wikipedia see if we can find any information but the town of Thurber is pretty well gone see a few random bricks laying here I don't know if any of them say Thurber on it not looking likely and I'm a firm believer leaving things as they lie no mess with things leave no Trace if you ever go okay guys this is the Davidson Cemetery that has stumbled across it's um if you're headed towards Mingus you'll see the Davidson Cemetery Road you can also Google it and find it it says it was established in July of 1864 a for a man named James Reed who was killed by Indians James descendants placed a permanent marker on his grave and 1989 it says okay so Elaine was donated in 1862 by Stuart and strong families who were early settlers of the area and Friends of the Davidsons um you'll see on these plaques where the brick work was done um excuse me 1922 it looks like is what I read there and uh you'll see where the lamb was donated by the the family of the stewards and the strongs guys when I was walking through this Cemetery I was really struck at how many stewards were in the cemetery but what really got me was it looked like it was a rough time to try to raise a family any children there were a lot of kids grades were in the turn of the century so uh you get time to stop by here and check this out and it's definitely worth the visit says it's one of the largest most picturesque cemeteries in the in the area I mean walking around to film any Graves I like that would be disrespectful well thanks for watching this long guys if you enjoy these types of videos please check back often I'm going to try to post at least a video a week maybe two if I can get enough filming done in between my day job and my passions so guys um I'm going to only try to get better with my videos I can't get any worse I don't think so once again thanks for watching and if you like it throw me a like and a subscribe if you've got any comments about where I should go next in the area please let me know

Channel: Skips Adventures

Views: 45,021

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Id: 7GH_GTY1fFo

Length: 17min 28sec (1048 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 16 2023