Bingo helps historic train depot

The Orange Train Depot Museum is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year and continues its fundraising with bingo this Sunday, February 11.

Tickets are $20 each and include 10 rounds of bingo with cash prizes. Winners of the first nine rounds will win $50 each and on the tenth round, the prize will be $200. A limited number of tickets will be sold.

Tickets include free mimosa drinks plus light hors d'ouevres. Doors will open at 2 p.m. Sunday and games will begin at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets are being sold through the Friends of the Orange Train Depot and the depot will be open Saturday, February 10, at 2:30 p.m. to sell tickets until they are all sold.

The Orange Train Depot Museum is the former Southern Pacific Railroad station at 1240 Green Avenue in downtown Orange. The depot was built nearly 120 years ago and was abandoned by the railroad in the 1970s.

After being used as offices and suffering a roof fire in 1990, the depot was abandoned for a number of years. Ten years ago, former Orange resident Carrie Woliver started a non-profit group to restore the depot.

It now serves as a rented event center for the community along with a museum on local industry and trains.

Money raised through the charity bingo games is used to help the on-going efforts to preserve the depot, which has a Texas State Historical Marker.