Van

Van is located east of Dallas between Canton and Tyler on I-20, Farm Road 314, and Hwy 110, in Van Zandt County.

By 1874, according to some sources, the town was known as Ratty Towns or Who'd-a-Thought-It, gaining its name when a citizen named Ratty Towns tried to open a store.

Mechanization of the nearby oilfield occurred in the 1940s, and by the 1950s Van had a Humble Oil refinery, five churches, and a consolidated independent school district. A total of 591 wells made up the Van field when Pure Oil became a division of Union Oil in 1965.

The population of Van grew from 1,103 in 1962 to 1,820 by 1974, when the community received a government housing project. With its close proximity to the county center at Canton, however, Van continued to grow slowly, reaching a population high of only 1,854 by 1992.

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