DAINGERFIELD, Texas ( KETK ) – The now-defunct Lone Star Steel plant near Daingerfield was the focus of over 10 years worth of East Texas’s most violent labor struggles in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Those strikes and the other labor disputes in KETK’s series East Texas’ Biggest Labor Disputes, represent a long history of working people from across East Texas fighting against racism, discrimination and unfair working conditions.

They tell the story of how workers from all different industries fought to keep their jobs, unionize their workplaces, secure wage increases, healthcare benefits and more.

On every Monday and Thursday until Labor Day on Sept. 2, KETK will present one of the eight most consequential chapters in East Texas labor history. Be sure to stay up to date with KETK so you won’t miss the next edition of East Texas’ Biggest Labor Disputes on Thursday, Aug. 22.

1957-1968: Lone Star Steel

In 1957 and 1968, strikes at Lone Star Steel near Daingerfield were marked by several shootings and bombings, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

A Texas Ranger by the name of Lewis Rigler, was one of those who were assigned to “uphold order” at Lone Star Steel in 1957 and 1968. Rigler described his experience of the strikes in his book titled, “ In the Line of Duty: Reflections of a Texas Ranger Private “.

According to Rigler, the 1957 strike was a wildcat strike that started when 1,500 workers walked out of the plant in reaction to Lone Star Steel’s handling of grievances. Rigler said that the plant’s president E. B. Germany was a known “staunch anti-laborite” who wouldn’t close the plant and hired expensive scab workers to keep the plant open during the strike.

In this first strike Rigler reported that fences were cut, houses were shot into, people were beaten, buildings were burned, cattle were shot, cars had their windows broken and sugar put into their gas tanks. There were even bombings.

Rigler said that when the striking workers first used bombs they used sticks of dynamite wired to alarm clocks and hidden in factory machinery. Later they reportedly dynamited a gas line they believed fed the plant but actually fed local hospitals. That bombing of the hospitals’ gas line led to public opinion turning against the strike which was quickly settled, according to Rigler.

The 1957 wildcat strike ended 40 days after it started and the workers were told that everyone except the strike leaders were going to hired back according to how senior they were before the strike. According to Rigler, the morning after the announcement was made there was a mass of people crowded in the employment office.

The workers wanted their jobs back so much that Rigler said they packed into the office back to front and ended up breaking a window. Rigler said he had to make the following announcement to disperse the crowd: “Y’all are all pressing too much and there’s no need of it, someone might get hurt. So just think what it would be like if you were all buck naked and pressing like that!”

The leaders of the union were kept out of the plant for around 18 months and Rigler said many never returned to work there.

In 1968, 95% of the plants 3,000 workers reportedly went on strike for a “basic steel contract” like they had in 1956 through 1958. The workers wanted their contract to have a pension plan, improved benefits and vacations, according to Rigler.

By that time Lone Star Steel was the biggest employer in the area, so Rigler reports that there was nowhere else for the strikers to find work, putting them under a lot of pressure which led to violence for the second time at Lone Star Steel.

Rigler wrote that that when trucks carrying steel would leave the plant they would be shot at by men hiding in the woods of nearby hills. In one case Rigler said a manger got a call about a bomb left in the mess hall that was set to go off at noon. Luckily, Rigler and some other Rangers working the strike were able to disarm the device.

One building near the plant housed a real estate office for workers and it was found blown to pieces. Rigler said bombs were placed in the plants smokestacks and in the rooms of Rangers and Highway Patrolmen working the strike. Lone Star Steel reportedly issued a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the alleged industrial saboteurs.

Scabbing workers would leave work at the plant and find their tires shot or would be shot at as they left. Rigler wrote that once a Captain Crowder and a Ranger Mitchell borrowed a truck and went incognito as workers with hard hats and left the plant.

They were allegedly shot at and they caught “a couple of guys” but were not able to get convictions on them because, “When an industry supports an entire section of the state, you are never going to find a jury that will convict this kind of wrongdoer.”

Two trucks from Fort Worth picked up some steel pipe from the plant and stopped in Mount Pleasant for the night. The trucks were dynamited and the pipes were mangled into “L-shapes” by the explosion. According to Rigler, three people were arrested for bombing the trucks but, again, they were not convicted.

At least 200 people were reportedly injured during the 210-day-long strike and one 27-year-old man was killed with a shotgun. According to the United Steelworkers of America, Local 4134, Lone Star Steel Strike Collection at the University of Texas Arlington , the strike ended in May of 1969 after the union and Lone Star Steel agreed to a contract.

Rigler concluded the section of his memoir on the strike by saying:

“I certainly did not approve of the acts of violence or the way the strikers went about trying to what they wanted, but neither did I approve of Lone Star Steel’s tactics, because often what the workers were striking over was working conditions rather than money. I didn’t care for either side. In fact, I just wanted the damn thing to be over.”

According to the Texarkana Gazette , the Lone Star Steel plant closed in 2020. The company cited the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on the industry as the reason for the plant’s closure.

To read the rest of this series, visit the following articles:

As this article shows, East Texas has a deep history of labor activity and because of that deep history this article is not comprehensive. Many labor disputes, even modern ones, are under-reported on, so they’re often only known about by the people who lived through them.

Anyone who would like to tell us about any labor disputes not covered in this series is invited to email newsroom@ketk.com.

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