Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Van Van, TX

Van's first settlers arrived around the Civil War era, and by 1874 the community was called Swindler, after George Swindler, who donated land for a school.

In 1894 schoolteacher Henry Vance established a post office in the community, and the town was renamed Van — a shortened form of Vance — in his honor.

A Pure Oil Company survey near Van in 1927 led to the Jarman No. 1 discovery well on October 13, 1929, which flowed 147 barrels of oil from the Woodbine formation at a depth of 2,710 feet.

Van became an overnight oil boomtown — about 30 buildings, including hotels and stores, were constructed in only 10 days after the discovery.

The Van oil field, operated chiefly by Pure Oil with Sun, Shell, the Texas Company, and Humble as co-owners, had produced 502 million barrels of oil by 1994.

The Texas Short Line Railway was extended to Van from Grand Saline in 1930 to serve the booming oil field.

By the 1950s Van had a Humble Oil refinery, five churches, and a consolidated independent school district.

On May 10, 2015, an EF3 tornado tore through Van, killing two people, injuring dozens more, and damaging about 30 percent of the town.

The 2020 census counted 2,664 residents in Van, a city of about 3 square miles located roughly 26 miles northwest of Tyler.

The 2020 census counted 1,061 housing units in Van, about 90 percent of them occupied.