Orange preparing for Christmas and the end of 1923
Published 5:04 pm Saturday, December 8, 2018
By Mike Louviere
As the year 1923 was coming to an end, there were a variety of events happening in Orange.
The Salvation Army listed the donations they had received to be given out at Christmas. It was a varied list that included rice, sweet potatoes, flour, cream, nuts, buckets of lard, and money. The Army stated that donations had been generous and would help families needing assistance this year.
Two area pastors were moving. Rev. J.B. Nations, pastor of the church at Remlig had accepted the pastorate of the church at West Orange. Rev. B.S. Franklin, pastor at West Orange had accepted the position of pastor at the Baptist Church of Alice, Texas.
The barbershops of Orange announced that they would be staying open until 8 p.m. on Monday night (December 24) to take care of the expected Christmas rush.
Oscar Hubbard Jones and Miss Willie Allen Ettie were quietly married by Rev. W.R. Brown of First Baptist Church, Orange. They were to reside at Johnson’s Bayou, Louisiana where Jones was engaged in fur trapping for the winter season.
Heavy rains on Friday night and Saturday morning caused the Boy Scouts to cancel plans to direct traffic in the downtown business district during the busy Christmas shopping time. Scouts appeared at the scout headquarters Saturday morning and were told that it would be impossible for them to carry out the work they had planned for the day.
City Secretary M.G. Davies announced there would be someone in the city secretary’s office extra hours for people to pay their taxes. Davies warned that there was but one week left for taxes to be paid without being assessed a 10% penalty.
Davies said one man in Orange cared about his dog. The man had come into the city secretary’s office and bought the first city dog license. The license had been on sale since December 1.
Only three licenses had been bought for vehicles engaged in drayage, transfer, or Jitney business. These licenses had also been on sale since December 1.
Drayage is a term utilized by the shipping and logistics sector to describe the process of transporting goods over short distances. While drayage can be used for minor transporting of goods, usually it is confined to use by the container shipping industry. Drayage is also referred to as transfer. Jitney is a bus or other vehicle carrying passengers for a low fare.
Employees of First National Bank and Guaranty Bank and Trust had been given “liberal” Christmas bonuses.
All the employees of the Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company had extra cash in their pay envelopes. Every employee had been given a cash Christmas bonus. Theirs was the largest Christmas gift given by any industrial concern. Each man was given a check in an envelope that contained the words “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”. Bonuses were given to employees of the two mills in Orange, the mill at Lunita, Louisiana and all of the men in the woodscrews.
Married men received a larger bonus than the single men.
Edgar Coale a student at Austin College in Sherman, Texas and Almin H. Coale, Jr., a student at Texas University in Austin, Texas arrived home to spend the holidays with their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Almin H. Coale, Sr.
No meeting of the county commissioners court was planned until the first of the New Year. At the first meeting of 1924, all unfinished business from 1923 would receive attention according to County Judge M.S. McCarver.
Southern Steel Company of San Antonio had been awarded a contract to build the new jail for Orange County. Southern Steel officials informed Judge McCarver that the materials would arrive in Orange on January 10, 1924. Construction would start on January 16, with the completion to be on or about June 15, 1924.
The cost of the new jail was set at $45,570.
“And now you know.”
