Lost States: True Stories of Texlahoma, Transylvania, and Other States That Never Made It (review)

During its 234 year history, the boundaries of the states of the United States have rarely been constructed wholly naturally or rationally; political, economic, and social considerations almost always have had their roles to play in the process. Beyond geography, these other issues also have helped to determine the natures and fates of the states that did not "make it" into existence or the Union. Their stories nevertheless are part of American history.

In Lost States, Michael Trinklein, a writer, producer, and former history teacher, succinctly tells the tales of seventy-four of these wannabe states in an effective melding of lighthearted prose, maps, and pictures. Each entry consists of a page of text, a map, and in some instances other images. In his introduction, Trinklein states that the book is not intended to be exhaustive in detail, and it is not. He also says that his intention is to entertain, and he does. In this well-illustrated book, the primary graphics are simple (if not sometimes simplistic) maps of the unconsummated states, derived from old maps or newly created ones. Even here, cartography can and should do more than exemplify. At the very least, these maps underscore the reality that the original determination of state boundaries often could be quite arbitrary.

Although the examples in this volume cover the entire United States and beyond, only six directly touch upon Texas. Adelverein (14-15) reflected the emergence of a German Central Texas in the 1840s. Comanchería (32-33) originally was the idea of Sam Houston in the late 1830s of a vast Comanche homeland that would include parts of present-day Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, and Wyoming. Jacinto (58-59) was to be fabricated out of pro-Southern East Texas in the 1860s. The 400 hundred acres of Rio Rico (108-109), created by the shifting of the Rio Grande out of Texas and Tamaulipas, was to offer a sanctuary for tipplers during Prohibition. South Texas (128-129) was proposed in a bill by state senator V. E. "Red" Berry in 1969 to give Roman Catholic Hispanics their own state and actually was debated on the floor of the state legislature. And Texlahoma (138-139), to be made up of forty-six counties of North Texas and western Oklahoma, was designed by Oklahoman A. P. Sights and supported by future vice president John "Cactus Jack" Nance Garner primarily to get more federal highway monies into the neglected region with the rise of the age of the automobile. In addition to these cases in point, there also are number of others concerning areas of the South, Midwest, and Southwest, and even Central America, surrounding Texas.

The content of Lost States rests firmly on the foundation of the question "What if?," a question that professional historians are taught not to ask because it is deemed essentially valueless. Yet, they frequently ask it to make history more intelligible. On the other hand, history buffs ask it freely. Clearly, this book can be of merit for both these audiences and the general reading public as well. And while it perhaps best classified as a "coffee table" book, in its totality it presents yet another historical depiction of an expansionist and religiously and ethnically segregationist United States.