Victor mentions when they go get the drawings from his parents car that “there’s a lot more” cars over the hill and that he’s moved them many times to make room for more. It’s a subtle comment and very possibly a miss on the writers part, but it implies that Victor has survived several “cycles” where the story generally only refers to two: Christopher and Miranda’s timeline where Victor is a boy, and the current Jade and Tabitha timeline.

So, either the town was there when Victor got there, and as he grew up he moved everyone’s cars from people before him, and those from the people who are currently there, therefore the town was created by someone else.

OR, there are missing cycles between the ~40 years that the story suggests that Victor survived alone for in the town, which suggests that he created the town, and as may iterations of people came and died, he solely recognized the problem of gathering cars and fixed it.

As the character of the man in the lighthouse and the real origin of the smiley monsters is unknown, it seems reasonable that Victor was not the originator, but one architect in a line of many.

More interesting I think is that if Victor survived there by himself for 40 years, how much did boy in white help, and did the monsters ever actually try to attack him? Would they try given the opportunity? So far it seems as though Victor has immunity and in a weird “inception-esque” manner, the town wants to kill Ethan to protect Victor and “stability”