Oysters, Macaroni, and Beer by Gene Rhea Tucker

Author:Gene Rhea Tucker [Tucker, Gene Rhea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, 20th Century, State & Local, Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX), Political Science, Labor & Industrial Relations
ISBN: 9780896727687
Google: A-U9LgEACAAJ
Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
Published: 2012-01-15T00:37:23+00:00

Thurber downtown on parade day. Cars fill Thurber’s downtown quadrangle in the 1920s for a parade. The brick building on the left housed the hardware store, meat market, and general offices; the brick building farther away housed the post office; and the last brick building in the distance was the large, modern drugstore. Courtesy of Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, Thurber, Texas, Photograph Collection, SWCPC 209.

Texas & Pacific filling station. The modern filling station built on the south end of the square in the 1920s signaled that oil was replacing coal as Thurber’s primary reason for existence. Courtesy of Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, Thurber, Texas, Photograph Collection, S1076.1.

Although coal shipments and profits were falling during the oil boom, profits for TPM&M increased from below $100,000 in 1916 to about $125,000 in 1917. This was probably due to the growth of Thurber in this period and an increase in the number of non-unionized workers that would not shy away from the company stores. In 1919 the earnings of the mercantile company reached their highest level yet, $197,600.63. TPM&M again earned high profits in 1920, making $183,060.00. But the town’s days as a coal camp were numbered, when, as Marston suspected, the Texas and Pacific Railway, the chief customer of Thurber’s coal, began using oil-burning locomotives in West Texas in 1919 and then in 1920 abandoned the use of the old coal-burning steam engines altogether. This drastically reduced the demand for coal from the Texas Pacific Coal and Oil Company. Miners removed less coal from the ground in 1919 and 1920 than in any year since 1907. Faced with increased wages demanded by the unions between 1918 and 1920, the coal company sold its coal at cost on the open market to make ends meet. With the increased wages, however, Thurberites during this period were using more cash than scrip to purchase goods at every major department of TPM&M for the first time. This continued the trend toward more cash sales and fewer scrip sales that began before unionization and was accelerated by increases in wages after 1903. Even purchases made at the grocery and meat markets were now mostly in cash.7 Frank Martin, a clerk in Thurber and later an executive for the oil company, remembered that between 1918 and 1921 “the company lost money on the mine operation, but they made it up in the ‘commissaries.’”8

CASH AND SCRIP SALES AT FIVE TPM&M DEPARTMENTS IN 1915, 1920, AND 1925

1915 1920 1925

TPM&M

Department Cash Sales (%) Scrip Sales (%) Cash Sales (%) Scrip Sales (%) Cash Sales (%) Scrip Sales (%)

Grocery 29.86 70.14 52.87 47.13 36.95 63.05

Dry Goods 50.22 49.78 78.01 21.99 71.99 28.01

Hardware 49.01 50.99 74.05 25.95 54.13 45.87

Drugstore 62.45 37.55 80.65 19.35 78.49 21.51

Meat Market 34.38 65.62 54.54 45.46 44.31 55.69

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