Mary Jane Gentry died in 1996, after a long and distinguished teaching career in Texas in Thurber, Springer Gap, San Angelo, Austin, and Odessa, where she retired from a tenured teaching position at Odessa College.T. Lindsay Baker retired as director of Tarleton State University's W. K. Gordon Center for the Industrial History of Texas, located at the former town site of Thurber, where he held the W. K. Gordon Endowed Chair in History. He lives in Rio Vista, Texas.

The Birth of a Texas Ghost Town: Thurber 1886-1933 provides readers with a detailed history of the rise and fall of one of the most notable coal-mining and brick-producing communities in Texas. . . . Any historian interested in Texas history, urban studies, and business history would find this book a valuable resource." - Southwestern Historical Quarterly"Gentry's work is full of anecdotes that give life to the community, and her story illuminates an important chapter in Texas history . . . Gentry's work should rekindle interest in Texas coal mining." - Journal of Southern History