‘Undertold History’: Author Mike Vance details Texas history in new book

Published 5:45 am Monday, July 1, 2024

Learning Texas history is important… especially when you live in Texas. Author Mike Vance has released a 48-chapter book about Texas history called Undertold Texas Volume 1.

This is the 12th published book by Vance and the first one of the series. There are at least four volumes to be expected.

“I think overall it’s vital that everyone understands our true history,” Vance said. “Unfortunately, history has become a lot of things in our lives; politicized, and I think that that’s a horrible shame. History is what it is. Like people, there’s good and bad.”

Vance divided Undertold Texas Volume 1 into sections of Texas. There are about six stories included in the section of the book regarding the East Texas area. One story that stood out to Vance was the one about Dad Joiner.

“It was one of my favorite ones because he just came across as a very flawed individual,” Vance said. “Just a sketchy story, but also the ultimate ‘what if’ story. He ended up discovering, almost inadvertently, what was at the time, by far, the largest oil field in the history of the world and had a chance to capitalize on that, and did not because of circumstances that he had put himself into. Someone else became the richest man in the world: H.L. Hunt, by buying out Dad Joiner.”

Dad Joiner is not the only person that proved mistake-making is a part of our history, according to Vance’s book. Martin Dies Jr., who was a congressman who represented Panola County and its surrounding counties, has an interesting story as well.

“He was before Sen. Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin in the ‘50s,” Vance said. “Martin Dies in the ‘30s was doing the same thing. He’s the one that really started The House Un-American Activities Committee, and he’s an example of one of the people in the book. Not all history is pretty, not all history has heroes, and it’s a fascinating story, and it’s interesting. Interesting, and I think important, that people understand mistakes that we have made before.”

Marshall’s own Wiley University, formerly Wiley College, has a movie written about their debate team, but several people might not know that Wiley was the second all-Black college in Texas. There’s a chapter in the book that talks about both of those things.

“They did a movie — probably been 10 or 15 years ago now — that Denzel Washington was in about their debate team,” Vance said. “I talked about that, but I also talked about that it was the second all-Black college in Texas, and it’s a story that I think nobody knows about. People would tend to put Prairie View ahead of it, and Prairie View in itself is a great story, but Wiley College, I thought, deserved some press.”

There are stories featured in the book that aren’t within East Texas, but rather to the West and Northwest. There is a chapter that focuses on the treaty made by the revolutionaries in the Texas Revolution with the Cherokee tribe.

“Ultimately Mirabeau Lamar ran the Cherokee out of that part of East Texas,’ Vance said. “but while that’s the ultimate end of the story, the chapter that I wrote concentrates on the treaty and why the treaty was cut, and why the treaty never got ratified. It’s interesting because they were just like the Americans that came into Mexican-Texas; the Cherokee were invited in. The Mexicans were happy to have them, because they thought they would be a buffer to keep the United States from growing into Mexico. That’s a huge amount of land that the Cherokee would’ve controlled and would’ve owned.”

While those stories involving East Texas are in Volume 1, Vance has more to come. In Volume 2, Vernon Dalhart, native of Jefferson, will be featured. Dalhart was one of the first country music stars, possibly the first. People would call it ‘hillbilly music,’ at the time, according to Vance.

“The goal of the book, and the idea, is to make this a series to put out a new one every year with 48 new stories,” Vance said. “I’ve already got enough for four volumes, as far as the people that are gonna be in there, and I’m looking to add more, so there’ll be plenty more good East Texas stories. The goal is to expose people to stories that they didn’t know about Texas.

“When you grow up and take Texas history in fourth and seventh grade, you hear a lot about Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, The Texas Revolution and things like that, but there’s so much more. It’s fascinating and I think people want to know more about our state.”