Hometown News For Orange County, Texas
Hometown News For Orange County, Texas
Sorted by date Results 301 - 325 of 484
Orange's 21st Annual Art in the Park will be this Saturday, April 1, with live music, arts and crafts, food trucks, a car show, and this year, a parade. The festival, sponsored by the city of Orange Convention and Visitors Bureau, this year will honor the town's newest local sports hero, O'Shaquie "Shock" Foster, who won the World Boxing Council's super featherweight championship in February. The 130-pound fighter now has a giant world championship belt. Art in the Park will...
Orange's longest-running tradition opens Wednesday, March 22, with the annual Lions Club Carnival. The merry-go-round, the Ferris wheel, the Tilt-a-Whirl, and kiddie cars will be moving to music with lights flashing. The pings of dimes hitting glassware at the dime toss will sound. The smell of hamburgers sizzling will entice people to wait in line for their annual fix. A 1939 daily newspaper story on the first carnival read "Lions Carnival To Offer Fun For All Ages." The...
Sales across Orange County were sluggish in January with only slight increases for a few of the entities that have a sales tax, based on payments sent by the Texas Comptroller's Office. The county and the city of West Orange were the only two entities that collected gains from January last year and for the year-to-date payments, which begin counting with money paid in January. The U.S. Department of Commerce reported the inflation rate for January was 6 percent. Orange County...
Shangri La is offering an early-morning, adults-only bird watching tour along Adams Bayou on Thursday, April 13. The botanical gardens and nature center will even provide binoculars and field guides for beginning birders. Sarah Boehme, curator of the Stark Museum of Art, will accompany the tour and discuss the famous 19th Century bird artist and naturalist John James Audubon. The Stark Museum of Art has a rare complete copy of Audubon's "The Birds of America." Reservations...
The Orange City Council has taken a big step in the development of the Cove Recreation Area by approving $77,480 for the playground equipment. The recreation area is along DuPont Drive and was once the site of the old Cove School. The school had been sold to private owners and had been vacant for nearly 30 years. The city bought the property with the specific goal of tearing down the dilapidated school and turning the land into a park. The plans for development include the...
The largesse of Chevron Phillips and the new Golden Triangle Polymers plant was on display again as the company donated $200,000 to Orange County Commissioners Court for a new "Local First" program. The money will go to the Orange County Economic Development Corporation to help local small businesses get into line to sell to the company and its contractors as the $8.5 billion construction project gets into full swing. Last week at the ceremonial groundbreaking for the new...
A brush fire burns in a rural area away from roads and easy access. Is it in danger of going near houses? A tornado travels across the county on a late afternoon. Where did it go and how many buildings did it damage? A child is lost in the woods. Volunteers are ready to search, but could use guidance for directions. A suicidal person jumps from the Rainbow Bridge. Their body needs to be recovered. The list can go on and on for the time emergency personnel in Orange County...
Families will be able to have a special stroll through Shangri La Botanical Gardens and have a picnic breakfast as the nature center, along with the Salvation Army's Boys and Girls Club hold the second annual Community Fun Walk on Saturday, April 8. Registration is now open through Shangri La's website for the special morning event that will include a booklet of family-friendly activities with a guide through the mile-long pathway through the gardens. In addition to learning...
For the past few weeks, women across Orange have been making cookies. They are careful about the spices in the jammy fig filling r or the citrus flavorings that have been handed down in recipes from their grandmothers and great-grandmothers. Others are preparing to fry vegetables, or their letting spaghetti sauces meld flavors together in the refrigerator, or preparing breads in artistic shapes. A centuries-old Italian tradition once held in homes has become a regular...
The roads are so bad in the Battlin' Bear subdivision, that the residents are ready to pay $3,500 per lot to fix them. And their problem raises some issues that could face Orange County as the influx of huge construction projects brings more housing developments. Builders and developers must get their roads to local code standards for the county to assume permanent maintenance and repairs. Plus, buyers need to make certain the subdivisions do not have cheap, substandard...
Orange County Commissioners Court voted to support the cities of Orange and West Orange in getting special state legislation approved so the cities can enforce heavy commercial truck laws as they prepare for the giant $8.5 billion construction project at the ChevronPhillips chemical plant. Also, commissioners agreed to add Alfanzo Circle off Tulane Road to be maintained by the county. The move came after residents complained the potholes were so big that school buses were...
New construction is in full swing around the Greater Orange area with much of it tied into the construction of the $8.5 billion ChevronPhillips chemical plant. However, HEB has not gotten any permits or announced the start of building its acquired site off MacArthur Drive in Pinehurst. The Texas-based grocery giant worked with Pinehurst officials more than five years ago to begin site plans at the spot where the 1960 MacArthur Shopping Center stood for half a century. Pinehurs...
An immigrant woman who moved to Orange in 1901 became one of the most respected citizens in town and set an example as a medical doctor in a world dominated by White men. Dr. Karen Peterson Mitchell was one of the first women physicians licensed in Texas and like many prominent people in local history, moved here because of the Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company. Her new husband at the time was offered a job as an engineer with the company, according to a story in the Las...
An Orange County patrol deputy checking on an SUV pulled off the side of the road late Monday morning ended up arresting a man who is accused of stabbing a man to death a few hours earlier in Harris County. Orange County Sheriff's Captain Joey Jacobs said Deputy Summer Magnen stopped a little before 11 Monday morning to check on the gray SUV off North FM 1442 near Linscomb Road. "As she pulls up, she's just going to do a welfare check, for like a disabled driver," Jacobs said....
On a late summer evening in 1938, state dignitaries along with local officials gathered in a stable off the Old Spanish Trail outside of Orange. But this was no ordinary stable, It was a sprawling one-story building with interior wooden paneling and a show ring. It would have fit as a set for a Katharine Hepburn-Gary Grant movie. Edgar Brown Jr. hosted the dinner the evening before the September 8 dedication of the Orange-Port Arthur Bridge, now known as the Rainbow Bridge....
The Orange City Council last week took steps to regulate the use of heavy commercial trucks traveling for the construction of the $8.5 billion ChevronPhillips Golden Triangle Polymers plant. Part of the action was to ask the state to allow city of Orange police, along with police in other Orange County cities to enforce the weight limits of commercial motor vehicles. City Manager Mike Kunst said in a memo the resolution from the council is the first step in getting the state...
December Christmas season sales were mostly stagnant across Orange County as sales tax collections were down from the year before. The Texas Comptroller's Office has sent sales tax payments to the entities covering December and only the city of Orange beat the inflation rate. Orange had a 6.97 percent increase for December 2022 compared to December 2021. The county collected 3.19 percent more, while other cities had slight decreases or stayed basically the same.i The U.S. infl...
Filing ended this past Friday for city council and school board elections in May. The cities of West Orange and Pinehurst, along with the Bridge City and Little Cypress-Mauriceville school districts, will be able to cancel their elections. State law allows board and council elections without contested races to be canceled. The city of Bridge City has the Place 3 council seat being contested after incumbent Tammi Fisette decided not to run. Bryant Champagne and Kenneth Prosperi...
Orange County is already getting money from the Chevron Phillips Chemical plant under construction. County Judge John Gothia said the company has paid nearly $2.4 million for a building-drainage permit on the acreage where the $8.5 billion plant is being built. Gothia said the county had put the money in reserves, or savings, and it is not included in the 2022-23 budget. However, that is changing. Commissioners Court Tuesday voted unanimously to move $500,000 of the money to t...
Pete Runnels, one of the most colorful local politicians in modern Orange County history, died Saturday at the age of 79. Offices he served in were Orange County judge and Pinehurst mayor. He was known for his easy-going personality and his quick smile. Besides serving in public office, he worked with local civic groups through the years and he started the annual Pinehurst Labor Day Picnic for senior citizens. "He was a good guy in everything he did," Orange County Commissione...
What is now Orange County had an unusual start in that some of its original settlers were members of a free Black family, the Ashworths. Records show they first moved across the Sabine River from Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, in 1831. William Ashworth was the first to come to Texas, followed by brothers Aaron and Abner. Their father, James, who was also free, had been in Louisiana since the 1700s. In the hardscrabble life of the pioneers, they had to work all the time to...
The streets of downtown Orange will be crowded on Saturday, February 11, as kids and adults watch colorful lighted floats and catch shiny beads during the annual Mardi Gras parade. The parade is the end of a variety of festivities that kick off on Thursday evening with a free Together Thursday concert sponsored by Dow and the United Way of Orange County. The performance at the City of Orange Riverside Pavilion off Simmons Drive will feature the Spazmatics, an cover band of...
As 1965 civil rights protests led to the "Bloody Sunday" beatings in Alabama, Orange citizens elected their first Black public official. Elzie Odom was elected to become a trustee in the old Orange Independent School District. He did not serve long because a job promotion took him across the country. He never lost his interest in public service and later became the first Black mayor of Arlington, Texas, where a recreation center is now named in his honor. He wrote a memoir in...
J.B. Arrington turned a routine meeting of Orange County Commissioners Court into a memorable event as the 98-year-old local legend sought support for preserving breast milk. Arrington, who is a World War II veteran, recently closed his J.B.'s Barbecue restaurant after 50 years in business. Before that, he was the longtime agriculture teacher at the old Stark High. Arrington spoke during the citizens comments part at the beginning of the meeting. He began by thanking...
It's deja vu all over again for the Bridge City City Council. Once again, the council is looking for a new city manager. Mayor David Rutledge said Brent Walker resigned from the job after serving only "a year and six days." "He went to a smaller town for bigger money," Rutledge said. "He came in and we provided a good stepping stone." Bridge City was Walker's first city manager job. Previously, he had worked as the assistant city manager and finance director for Dalhart in the...
