The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 73, July 1969 - April, 1970 Page: 135

Book Reviews

the word "mineral." To halt sales while completing this task he raised
the price on agricultural and grazing land to $10o per acre. Rogan's
contention that he could also fix the maximum price of lands was
upheld in Weber v. Rogan on January 22, 1900. In 1922, in Noble
et al. v. Robison, the court held that Rogan's writing the word
"mineral" on the records, a practice continued by his successors, was
sufficient to retain the state's mineral rights. In 1919 the law was
perfected to save the minerals. Thus, by these two actions, classifying
the land as "mineral" and halting sales until the classification was
completed, he saved the state's mineral estate on 7,400,000 acres of
unsold school lands. This acreage, plus the tidelands, and river
beds, has given Texas schools today a mineral estate of nearly fourteen
million acres.
In 1898 it was discovered that the public school fund had not re-
ceived one-half of the public domain, as required by the Constitution
of 1876. During Rogan's term, a careful audit of the land records
was made; several million acres of recovered land plus all the re-
maining public lands were credited to the school fund and a cash
settlement made for the remaining acres due.
For these three contributions Judge Rogan certainly deserves a
high place in Texas history. It is hoped that this fine book will help
attain this credit due him.
Texas Ai&M University THOMAS LLOYD MILLER
3oo Years in Victoria County. Edited by Roy Grimes. Drawings by
Tom Jones. (Victoria: The Victoria Advocate Publishing Co.,
1968. Pp. 649. Illustrations, bibliographical notes, index. $12.50.)
History for a great many people is a story of vast movements, great
civilizations, and demigods playing out a world-wide game of chess
with nations as pawns. All too often, history seems to bypass local
events and peoples as seemingly unworthy of notice. But it is on
the local scene that we find the proverbial "warp and woof" of
history, the peoples, events, and places that can illuminate and
humanize man's story.
300 Years in Victoria County is a worthy attempt to fill in the
broad pattern of the Texas story. Drawing upon the "Historical
Edition" of The Victoria Advocate published in May, 1968, the editor
has brought together the stories of an area that may be referred to
as "The Cradle of Texas History." Beginning with the story of the

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