In The Secret Hour, it is revealed that prior to the current generation of Midnighters, there used to be a large collective of Midnighters who, for all intents and purposes, ran the small town of Bixby in an attempt to protect it from the Darklings. Rex manages to deduce this from both historical accounts and "The Lore", notes made by previous Midnighters. However approximately fifty years before the beginning of the book the lore ceased to be updated for unknown reasons. The disappearance of the previous generation of Midnighters remains a mystery until the second book Touching Darkness.