The Smokestack restaurant of Thurber, Texas, first opened its doors to the public over forty-five years ago.
The original restaurant was located the old drugstore used to be, nestled in downtown Thurber.
The restaurant got its name from smokestack from the local power plant.
The Only Restaurant in Downtown Thurber
Updated 2/11/2020 – In 1992, the restaurant caught fire and the old drugstore was destroyed.
The family decided to relocate the restaurant to the old Texas & Pacific Mercantile building on the north side of town.
It is the only building downtown built of original bricks from the 1890s.
This rustic and charming restaurant is popular for two reasons.
The first is that it is the only restaurant located in downtown Thurber.
The second reason is that the building is believed to be haunted.
Many locals have reported seeing an apparition of a woman in an old fashioned dress wandering around the restaurant.
Thurber native Carrie (all names have been changed for privacy) had caught wind of this rumor, but that never deterred her or her family from going to the restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night.
“Practically everyone goes to the Smokestack at least once a month, because its tradition,” Carrie reasoned.
Girl with the White Eyes
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But Carrie’s nonchalance quickly came to a halt just last week.
It was a Friday evening, and Carrie, along with her daughter, aunt and mother decided to have a girl’s night out on the town.
They had just been seated at a table when Carrie’s daughter, who is eight, went to use the restroom.
“It felt like a half hour had passed before Deanna finally came back to the table.
One look at her face, and alarm bells starting going off in my head,” Carrie said.
“She looked very pale, and kind of startled…
I wondered if she was getting a fever.
“’Honey, what’s wrong, you don’t look so good,’ I murmured to her.
She looked up at me with wide eyes and whispered, ‘a strange looking woman talked to me in the bathroom.’
I must have asked her about a hundred questions after that, making sure this creepy stranger hadn’t touched my daughter or said anything inappropriate, but Deanna kept shaking her head.
“’Nothing like that, mama.
Most of what she said didn’t even make sense, but it frightened me,’ she said.
And then her nose started to bleed profusely.
“All through dinner, I watched my daughter very carefully.
Her skin remained pale and sickly, and—it was probably my imagination—but it seemed like her eyes were growing paler in color as well.
I was about to suggest that we go home early when she dropped her fork and pointed across the restaurant.
“’That’s her, that’s the woman, mama!’ she cried out.
“It was hard to see who she was pointing too, but a pale woman moving along the back caught my eye.
It was almost like she could tell I was looking at her, because she suddenly stopped moving and turned to look toward us.
“I will never forget that moment,” Carrie said, tearing up.
“The woman’s eyes had an unnatural white glow to them, as if she weren’t human.
I tried to convince myself that they were just contacts, until she turned her back to me and walked right through the back wall of the restaurant.
“I shrieked in surprise, but nobody else seemed to notice—as if they couldn’t see her at all.
I immediately grabbed Deanna and we left,” Carried said.
“I don’t care if the Smokestack is the only restaurant in Thurber, I can’t bring my daughter back there.”