History of Vidor, Texas.

The city of Vidor, Texas was founded as a logging mill town in 1895 by Charles Sheridan Vidor and his group of men. Charles Sheridan Vidor was the founder of the city of Vidor, Texas. The area was surrounded by big thicket forest which had provided a good business incentive for Charles to start up his Miller & Vidor Lumber Company in that area of East Texas in 1905. In 1909, the first post office was established for the small town of Vidor. In 1910 is when business had really gotten started. During the early part of the 20th Century, Vidor was a lumber town and a mill town.

Charles Sheridan Vidor was the founding father of the town of Vidor, Texas. He helped plan the blueprint layout of Vidor to become a city. Charles Sheridan Vidor was a racist city official who was the towns founding father and local KKK member that happened to make it very clear in law and order the nobody black would live there. He carried two .38's on his hips.

EVEN in 1920 when Vidor had a population of 50 people that was roughly male and all white. So despite local historians and citizens stating that black people had lived in Vidor prior to Charles Sheridan Vidor and his men moving there is false. The United States Census books show Vidor had an all-white population back then. Vidor has always been white by default. White flight found a haven in Vidor as well as Rose City and Lumberton in 1920.

In the 1920s, Vidor, Texas was known as the Bloody Vidor. The reason for that is because violence and bar fights were part of the culture in Vidor, Texas. Violence was a recreational sport back then. The local KKK was no exception to that. The violent activities had ranged from shootings, hangings, lynchings, arson, murder, and beatings along with cross burnings. Violence and terrorism was a common factor in Vidor, Texas at that time.

It was prior to 1925 that Vidor was only by ferry across the Neches River. The ferry was accessible to the residents of Beaumont who worked for the Miller & Vidor Lumber Company. Vidor just had one road call Main Street running through the city back then.
There were malaria epidemics that swept people away. The mosquitoes were so thick that they had smothered cattle. Vidor was known as a swamp back then. Many of the roads had huge potholes. There has always seemed to be an atmosphere of poverty and isolation in Vidor that has really continued to thrive.

In 1926 is when the Miller-Vidor Lumber Company had moved to the small town of Lakeview, Texas in search of more virgin timber for their business. Vidor had lost a lot of jobs a result from that particular business decision. The rest of the Miller-Vidor subdivision was planned on a blueprint, built, and laid out by 1929. The final results were finished by then over there.
By 1929, the town of Vidor had faced poverty, violence, fire, and isolation. The reasons for these factors was because of the Great Depression that had struck the United States economy with a fatal blow to the NYSE stock market.


By 1930, it was clear that the local KKK did not want black citizens living in Vidor. The reason for that is because of a local tale that a black men had raped a white woman in the middle of the night at midnight. The women had screamed loudly and had gotten the local KKK's attention. So the local KKK had formed a local search party to find the black rapists. The KKK had hung two black men before they got the right one. The fourth one got away. There were 3 nooses from a tree at a fishing hole nearby and nooses hanging from a sign in the middle of Vidor. The sign said "Nigger, don't let the sun set down on you in Vidor.". It was at that point that the KKK members had decided they did not want black citizens living in the city of Vidor.
By 1930, Vidor was known as a sundown town.

In the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan groups that had a stranglehold in local politics that had ruled Vidor with an iron fist were known as Knights of the White Camellia (KWC), White Camellia Knights (WCK) and Vidor Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The surrounding thick forests provided some cover for secret meetings of the Ku Klux Klan. It was an idealistic environment for the local Ku Klux Klan groups.
Vidor was national headquarters and state headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan along with Dallas, Texas , Pulanski, Tennessee , Beaumont, Texas , Houston, Texas , Mena, Arkansas , Pine Bluff, Arkansas , Harrison, Arkansas , and Hammond, Indiana along with several other klan klaverns in cities & town across the Untied States.


In the 1950s is when Vidor had became a white flight haven in East Texas. It was known to many citizens in East Texas that Vidor was a white flight haven for racist bigots and the KKK. Vidor was a Democratic city right then. The town of Vidor was still very small. Arsons, cross burnings, and fires were a common sight in Vidor in the 1950s and 1960s. The 50s is when Vidor had built many public schools for the city as well as Rose City.

In 1960s and 1970s, Vidor had continued to attract large numbers of residents as white citizens left Beaumont. Vidor was a haven for white flight. There have been local stories that had persisted of black people stopping for gas and just being chased out of town. Hippies being refused serviced because of their long hair along  with many other horrible treatments. Vidor was the national headquarters for the KKK along with Dallas and Pulaski along with several other klaverns. A Klan bookstore welcomed shoppers on Main Street and the Klan catered local functions. The KKK was headquartered in Vidor.

The local VOKKKK had made the local newspaper headlines in the Vidorian newspaper during the 1980s era. Local klansman A.W. Harvey, Grand Dragon of Vidor's Original Knights of the Ku Klux Klan had ran for mayor of Vidor in an unsuccessful attempt in the 1980s. No citizens took his political viewpoints very seriously at all of course. Most of the KKK left Vidor by 1987.
By the 1980s, things were quiet in the small town of Vidor for a while.


In the 1990s is when Vidor started getting riled up wild again!

In 1993, the US government had to bring blacks into Vidor's public housing after a court order from the Black vs. Young court case that caused a court order that public housing complexes be desegregated back in 1981. Most public official did not comply. So the White Camellia Knights and KKK had held a march in the community. The KKK had forced black families to move out of Vidor by 1994.
The main perpetrators of these controversial events were local citizens Charles Wayne Lee (then Grand Dragon and now Imperial Wizard of the White Camellia Knights), Michael Daniel Lowe (Grand Dragon of the Texas Knights of the Ku Klux Klan), James Hall Jr., Edith Marie Johnson of the Nationalist Movement and White Camellia Knights, and Thom Robb. Organizations such as the White Camellia Knights, Nationalist Movement, Texas Senate, Texas Legislator, The Creationists, and Aryan Nation were responsible 

By 1995, the racial tension had calmed down and black citizens had moved in again with no hassle. The city of Vidor was surely but slowly loosing it's racist stigma on again for the second time since the 1980s. The reputation of Vidor had changed drastically around the middle of the 1990s.

By 2000, Vidor had became a mill town and a business town again. The city official of Vidor started encouraging people to move to Vidor in the mid 2000s. The KKK had left the city of Vidor thus moving away from the city limits into other towns in the United States.
The town of Vidor had suffered considerable hurricane damage from Hurricane Katrina in the mid 2000s which led city officials and local politicians to change the image of Vidor around as a city. 2008 is when the city of Vidor decided to change their image problem. By 2012, everything got quieted down.