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About 11 p.m. on May 26, 1908, an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence happened in Orange.

For an undetermined reason a scaffold around the smokestack at the Orange Ice, Light, and Power Company caught fire. Orange firefighters had to haul the firehose up the scaffold to fight the fire. The fire was extinguished before any serious damage happened.

After three weeks a city-wide revival was winding down. The revival had been held at the Orange Opera House. All of the churches in the city had participated and the Orange Daily Leader had given a daily summary of the prior night’s service.

Every business agreed to close from 10:45 a.m. until noon for the church services. Four saloons had agreed to close with others to be contacted by a revival committee  as the closing service was approaching.

Dr. Walton, the evangelist and his helpers were going to Waxahachie for a series of revival meetings after the services in Orange concluded.

A report on the baseball season showed Orange was in third place behind Lake Charles in first and Morgan City in second place. Alexandria, Crowley and Beaumont followed Orange in the standings. Orange had a record of 13 wins and 12 losses. The game the preceding day was a loss for Orange when the Morgan City Oyster Shuckers defeated the Orange Hoo Hoo team 13 to 12.

Harmon informed the public that he relocated his saddle and harness shop from the corner of Main and Fourth Streets to Fifth Street near the Stark Stables. Harmon stated that the move was being made “to better turn out first class work.”

The R.E. Lemons Bicycle Shop advertised they were doing “all sorts of repair work,” including bicycles, phonographs, umbrellas, sewing machines and gasoline stoves.

Charles L. Davis, master and owner of the launch Nellie was advising that he was available for towing, freighting, fishing or excursion parties. The Nellie was docked at the foot of Second Street.

A.L. DuPont was the local agent for Otto Zeikel, tombstone manufacturer. DuPont was available to take orders for tombstones or other types of marble work.

The Miller Furniture Company stated they needed to make room for two carloads of furniture that were arriving soon. They were lowering prices on all goods in stock. Everything in the furniture line was included, along with window shades of every size, linoleum, matting, art squares, oil paintings and refrigerators. Wallpaper and moldings could be ordered from samples. The company stated, “Don’t forget your credit is good with us.”

Ford and Seastrunk were selling “pure clean honey” from their West Apiary in Orange. It was said the honey was not “grabbled’ out of a dirty hive with more or less dirty hands but was built by bees onto clean, white wooden squares which were then taken from the hives untouched by human hands.”

Pure comb honey in one pound squares was priced at 15 cents, extracted honey in pint jars was 20 cents per jar.

Dr. Adams, an eye specialist in the firm of Drs. Adams and Thomas of Beaumont was in Orange May 28 and May 29 to examine and treat persons with “eye troubles.”

Dr. Adams had 15 years of experience in this line of work and guaranteed to cure persons problems if he took their case. Dr. Adams would be working from an office in the Holland Hotel.

The Marvel Theatre had “extra fine moving pictures from machines that do not hurt your eyes.” There were nightly changes of pictures. Prices were 10 cents for adults and five cents for children.

The theatre was open from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m. each night, except for Sundays when the theatre was closed.

“And now you know.”

— Written by Mike Louviere