The Orange Leader
Orange, Orange County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Tracing its origins to 1875, this newspaper has served Orange for over a century. It began as "The Orange Weekly Tribune" operated by A. P. Harris, general mercantile merchant. Through subsequent owners and mergers with other newspapers, the masthead underwent several name changes, including "The Orange Leader," "The Orange Leader and Weekly Tribune," "The Orange Daily Tribune," "The Citizen-Record Consolidated," and "The Orange Leader" again. Over the years the newspaper has kept the community informed on matters of local, state, national, and international concern. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Orange Leader traces its roots to 1875, when merchant A. P. Harris founded The Orange Weekly Tribune in the growing Sabine River lumber town. Through a long succession of owners, mergers, and name changes, the paper kept Orange informed on local and world affairs for well over a century. It stands among the enduring institutions of southeast Texas journalism.
Why it matters
Long-running local newspapers preserve the daily record of a community and reflect the civic life of small industrial cities.
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Related people
- · A. P. Harris
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dr. William Hewson and Dr. David Caldwell Hewson
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Father and son William and David Caldwell Hewson were among the frontier physicians who built up young Orange County. William, Philadelphia-born, settled here in the early 1850s, practicing medicine while running a drugstore, an early sawmill, and helping erect the county courthouse. His son David, a University of Pennsylvania medical graduate, served as a Confederate medical examiner during the Civil War before returning to a thriving practice and leading the regional medical society.
Site of End of the Line Station
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Chartered in 1856, the rail line reaching Orange was meant to knit Texas to a trade route pushing west from the Mississippi. Because the tracks halted at the Sabine River, the first depot here earned the name End of the Line Station, where trains unloaded cargo for transfer to riverboats and ocean freighters. Service continued in part through the Civil War—when some nearby rails were torn up to fortify Sabine Pass—before the interstate route was finally completed in 1881.
The Sawmill Industry in Orange County
Orange, TX
Orange County's timber industry began with hand-logging by pioneer settlers in the 1820s, took on its first mechanized sawmill in 1835, and its first steam-driven mill in 1841. Cypress dominated until native pine came into use in the late 1850s, spawning company towns and logging camps whose logs were rafted down the Sabine and Neches rivers. By the early 1900s the industry consolidated and shifted from river transport to railroads, with giants like Lutcher & Moore leading—until the last of the big mills closed in 1931.
William Henry Stark
Orange, TX
William Henry Stark came to Orange in 1870, learned every phase of the sawmill trade, and in 1881 married Miriam Melissa Lutcher, daughter of lumber magnate Henry Jacob Lutcher. Joining his father-in-law's firm, he rose to run mills in Louisiana and parlayed his lumber fortune into iron, coal, real estate, and ranching. His progressive vision—deep-water ports on the Sabine and irrigation that spurred the region's rice industry—helped drive Orange's growth, and he served as a University of Texas regent from 1911 to 1915.