Jorgensen House
Orange, Orange County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This house stands on land purchased in 1900 by J. K. Jorgensen, a hardware store clerk. Construction began in 1907 when Jorgensen removed the front porch and two front rooms from a relative's house and moved them to this location on wooden rollers pulled by mules. The back two rooms were added soon after. Assembled from late 19th century components, this modest vernacular residence features Victorian influences in its porch details and large windows. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
J. K. Jorgensen, a hardware store clerk, bought this Orange lot in 1900 and built his home in an unusually thrifty way. In 1907 he detached the front porch and two rooms of a relative's house and hauled them here on wooden rollers pulled by mules, adding two more rooms behind them. The result is a modest vernacular residence dressed with Victorian porch details and tall windows.
Why it matters
The house preserves the resourceful, make-do building practices of ordinary working Texans at the turn of the century, when moving and reassembling structures was a practical alternative to building anew.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · J. K. Jorgensen
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Howell-Linscomb Home
Orange, TX
Carpenter and contractor Daniel Webster Howell built this two-story galleried house in 1900–03 for his wife Amanda and their ten children, lavishing it with the intricate gingerbread detailing of the late Victorian style. In 1918 the family sold it to barber Milam Linscomb, and the ornate home stands as a survivor of Orange's boom years as a Southeast Texas lumber center.
Bland-Bazzano House
Orange, TX
John Horace Bland and his wife Edna built this home in 1902, part of a wave of turn-of-the-century residences that gave Orange its Victorian character. After passing through the Dullahan family, it was bought in 1919 by local cobbler Louis Phillip Bazzano and his wife Annie, leaders in the community and the First Baptist Church, who later conveyed it to their daughter. Its Queen Anne detailing typifies the era's domestic architecture.
West End Park
Orange, TX
For nearly eighty years West End Park was Orange's baseball ground, its wooden grandstands built to lure a professional club for spring training. Flush from a World War I shipbuilding boom, lumber heir H.I. Lutcher Stark formed an athletic association that brought the St. Louis Cardinals to town, and on February 28, 1921, fans crowded a supposedly private practice to glimpse future Hall of Famers like Branch Rickey and Rogers Hornsby. Long after the Cardinals stopped coming, local teams played on the field until it was finally leveled in 2009.
Orange Chamber of Commerce
Orange, TX
The Orange Chamber of Commerce grew from an 1887 citizens' committee formed to promote the young Sabine River city's business potential. Through a Board of Trade in 1899 and the Progressive League of Orange in 1902, civic and manufacturing leaders pursued better roads, a deep-water canal, and an opera house while courting outside investors. Consolidated into today's chamber around 1918–1922, the organization later helped draw the chemical plants that reshaped the local economy after 1947.