Hometown News For Orange County, Texas
Hometown News For Orange County, Texas
Sorted by date Results 451 - 475 of 484
Twenty years ago, a few people were getting music from the internet thanks to a new device called the iPod. Netflix mailed DVDs. Less than half of Americans had broadband internet service. No one had dreamed of a smartphone that people would allow people to have a computer in their pocket, or conceived of social media. Technology has changed the world in two decades. But technology still has not caught up with Orange County's biggest mystery. Who killed little Dannarriah...
The city of Orange continues its effort to clean up as more sub-standard buildings were torn down. The clean-up goes along with the progress on adding new residences. Last month the city issued eight building permits for new houses along with seven permits issued for demolitions. The buildings were in different areas with the addresses as 1205 Main Avenue, 1207 DuPont Drive, 2311 Riverside Drive, 2322 Butler, 1110 13th Street, 3915 Meeks Drive, and 1910 Luther Drive. DSLD...
Seven years have passed since Bridge City had a good roasting and as the summer of 2022 grows into a scorcher, it's County Judge John Gothia who is going to face the heat. On August 4, the Bridge City Chamber of Commerce is having a "celebrity roast" of the head of county government. "Tables are going fast," said Chamber Director Mandy Lyda. Gothia is a longtime Bridge City resident who has been active in the Orange and Bridge City chambers of commerce before successfully...
Fun science experiments aren't usually listed as entertainment for a gala event, but they are fitting to honor the late science teacher Michael Hoke. Science Superstars demonstrations will be part of the fundraising gala for the Michael W. Hoke Foundation on July 23 at the Shahan Events Center of LSCO. Robert Hoke, son of Michael, said his family established the foundation to award scholarships to students seeking careers in teaching science or environmental education at...
Sales across Orange County were mixed in April with some cities seeing a slight drop in sales tax revenues for the month. The Texas Comptroller's Office announced the payments this past week. The city of Orange had the biggest overall increase in sales taxes, while Orange County also saw an increase. Bridge City had a slight drop for the month, but is still ahead for the year to date. According to the U.S. Department of Labor Statistics, the inflation rate for April was at...
The Krewe de Onyx of Orange has organized a two-day Juneteenth Festival for Saturday and Sunday at the Orange Boat Ramp off Simmons Drive. The event will have lots of live music, food, activities for children, and a community prayer service on Sunday morning. The lineup fits with the tradition of Juneteenth, which began in Galveston, 100 miles away. Smithsonian Magazine said the news of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves in confederate states reached Texas...
Noon is still a half hour away on a June morning, but pickup trucks are already pulling off Old Highway 90 into the parking lot of JB's Barbecue. The drivers don't even get out after seeing the "Closed for Repairs" sign. They will have to wait another week before getting the famous juicy, tender, smoked brisket dripping with JB's unique sauce. And when the landmark barbecue restaurant opens on June 15, it will be a special day. JB's is celebrating its 50th anniversary, making...
The Orange Public Library received a surprise gift from Dow Chemical in time for summer reading. The company with a plant facility here gave more than three dozen new children's books to the library with diverse stories to tell history and empowerment. Library Director Brenna Manasco said the library has received grants before, but not such a large gift of new books. She said the books were chosen by Dow from the Conscious Kid site. Many are award-winning titles or come with...
Peggy Claybar likes to give little lessons to her grandchildren and little ears were listening to the ones about community service. On their own, four of them decided they could bake cookies and lemonade to sell to help rescue dogs. Now, Annabelle, Caroline, Breelyn, and Keller will hold their Fifth Annual Lemonade Stand on Wednesday, June 1, outside the home of F. David and Peggy Claybar on Pine Avenue at Fifth Street in the Old Orange Historic District. The hours will be 9 a...
The 2022 hurricane season is starting out with a tropical depression in the Gulf of Mexico, but the good news for a storm-weary Orange County is that the National Weather Service predicts it will affect the Florida coast, rather than Texas or Louisiana. The NWS in Lake Charles issued the news Tuesday afternoon as the season started on Wednesday. The tropical depression is from the remnants of Hurricane Agatha, which started in the Pacific Ocean and crossed the Yucatan. If the...
Bridge City was the only major taxing entity in the county to see an increase in sales tax payments from March compared to March of 2021. The Texas Comptroller's Office last week sent out payments with Bridge City collecting about $20,000 more for the month this year. Other cities, plus the county, were down slightly for the month, but most still have increases for the year to date. Pinehurst and Vidor are down for the month and year. The decreases in sales from last year...
Thomas A. Howell may be the most influential man in Orange that people haven't heard about. No streets are named after him. He hasn't been featured in local history books. However, the Orange High School Tigers in the 1930s played football in Howell Stadium. Howell was an architect and builder. His work today can be seen on a drive in the Old Orange Historic District when you pass houses he designed and built. His projects include one of the most elaborate construction and...
The current Orange City Council is taking an idea from the past and making it new again. The new recreation center set to open this summer will have two basketball courts and activities, but it won't compare with the Orange Youth Center, built from a remodeled World War II hospital. The Youth Center opened in June 1958, with its glory days through the 1960s and 1970s, when it named the Thomen Center in honor of Mayor Martin Thomen Sr., whose son and grandson also served on the...
As the temperatures rose this week, people across Orange County could bare their arms, their legs, and their faces. Covid 19 has almost disappeared. Orange County Emergency Management Director Joel Ardoin said on Tuesday that no confirmed cases were reported and only four unconfirmed cases marked during the past week. No new deaths have been added during the week. But Covid 19 is not a disease to be forgotten, especially in Orange County. which has a high per capita death...
Construction of the flood protection system for Orange County will create 5,000 to 10,000 jobs with the project to include moving more than five million cubic feet of dirt, enough to fill the Astrodome three times. The money is now in place and construction is set to begin in 2024. The total project is expected to be finished in four years. Congress in 2018 approved federal money for the Orange County system, which will cost about $2.39 Billion. On Friday, the Gulf Coast...
The two largest building projects receiving permits in Orange for April have had help from city Economic Development Corporation grants. A commercial fire sprinkler system valued at $72,851 is going into the new medical center at Eagle Point. In January, a perm it for the $8.6 million Gisela Houseman Medical Campus was issued for the area off Interstate 10 at Highway 62. Also in April, Paul Dickerson with Orange Stationer, 701 W. Division in downtown, received a permit for $46...
People across Orange County are continuing to spend money, even with inflation, as sales taxes in February rose more than the inflation rate. The Texas Comptroller's Office has sent the payments to the public entities that collect the taxes and even the city of Pinehurst saw a nice increase. That city has had declines in sales taxes during the past few years, but has been adding new businesses. The U.S. Bureau of Statistics reports the inflation rate in February was 7.9...
Almost all of the property with historic value that will be affected by the levee-seawall-pump station system are along, or near, the Sabine River in the city of Orange. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been working with the Texas Historical Commission to survey and preserve historic sites that will be affected by the flood prevention system to be built around the southern side of the county and up along part of the eastern side. In a survey completed last year, the...
Hundreds of vehicles travel along Border Street in Orange each day as workers go back and forth to chemical plant jobs. They pass the town's oldest community cemetery with tombstones, mausoleums, and markers showing the resting grounds of some of Orange's most prominent, plus lesser-known, residents through almost two centuries. Evergreen Cemetery between Border and Tenth Streets and along Jackson Street has at least 7,500 burials, with the oldest known back to 1840,...
Orange's pump station is only one in county. Corps of Engineers plans seven When heavy rain is in the forecast or starting to come down, the city of Orange has the Sabine River pump station to help get water quickly out of the part of town drained by Cooper's Gully. The station, built in the 1960s, is the only drainage pump station in Orange County. But that will be changing when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers builds of a countywide "flood and storm damage reduction system"...
Orange's Central Fire Station isn't facing Elm Avenue now. It's along Chief David Frenzel Plaza. The renaming of that section of the street was announced this past Friday during a reception-retirement party for Fire Chief Frenzel, who is ending his career on April 19, 53 years after he started in the department on April 19, 1969. It wasn't his only honor. Greg Gravett with the local firefighters union showed artist renditions of a future tribute to Frenzel to be placed...
Upcoming school board elections may have a new importance for parents and students in the future as the state begins to allow the boards to oversee all school library acquisitions. On Monday, Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath introduced a proposed state policy for school boards to adopt that will set up criteria for selecting and keeping school library materials. The proposed policy was written after Governor Greg Abbott requested more community and parental...
The city of Orange issued permits for new commercial construction valued at nearly a half million dollars. Added onto that are permits for six new residences that will total more than a million dollars, according to March building permits issued by the city. A new donut shop, Orange City, is constructing a $300,000 building, the largest permit of the month. The new shop will be at 3640 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, north of Interstate 10, near two churches and Willowbend...
Something so extraordinary is happening this week that the Harris family is closing Farmers Mercantile Friday and Saturday during spring planting time. The family wants to see Dan Harris Sr. inducted into the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame in Fort Worth. Dan Harris was a member of the Sam Houston rodeo team that won the 1968 National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association's national championship. He said the girls and the boys teams won their competitions that year, which was a fi...
The West Orange-Cove CISD school board Monday voted to honor local professional baseball legend Andre Robertson by naming the high school field for him. The school district announced the Andre Robertson Field at Ronnie Anderson Park will be at West Orange-Stark High School. Robertson integrated the local Little League in the 1960s and went on to become starting short stop for the New York Yankees. His other tributes include being inducted to the Longhorn Hall of Honor at the...
