A hundred years ago, a group of businessmen from across Texas and Louisiana met in Orange for a special treat. A bridge was open across Adams Bayou on what would now be Park Avenue.
“Many exclamations of pleasure were heard as the visitors passed over this magnificent structure,” the Orange Daily Leader reported the next day, September 16, 1921.
The group was from the Old Spanish Trail organization supported by The Good Roads Club. The group formed in 1915 to build an automobile road system across the southern U.S. from Florida to California. Orange was the first spot in Texas.
Charlotte Kahl of San Antonio organized an Old Spanish Trail centennial history event in Orange set for September 16 and 17. However, she has canceled the conference because of the Covid outbreak in Orange County.
The Old Spanish Trail was what is now Green Avenue, then turned north onto 15th Street, and west to Park Avenue. It eventually became U.S. Highway 90 and several parts of it are still used in Orange, Pinehurst, McLewis, Vidor, and Rose City.
Kahl said the highway was built with businessmen paying $100 a year (about $2,000 in 2021) to construct the roadway. The fee was considered an investment to bring motorists and new commerce to a city.
The move worked in Orange. The 1917 city director shows Green Avenue lined by residential family houses and a hotel near the Southern Pacific Railroad depot. Ten years later, Green Avenue had numberous gasoline ‘filling stations’ and several cafes mixed in with the residences.
The planned centennial celebration was to begin with a Thursday evening walk along Green Avenue by Margaret Toal, chair of the Orange County Historical Commission, to point out what homes and businesses stood in 1921.
A free conference was set for the American Legion Hall on Green Avenue with speakers including Judge Jerry Pennington, former chair of the historical commission, giving a history of the local shipbuilding industry. Joshua Cole with the Stark Foundation was to present the history of the lumber industry.
The conference had groups like Texas Department of Transportation, Heritage House Museum of Orange County, and Convention and Visitors bureaus from cities along the Old Spanish Trail Highway. Breakfast and lunch were set to be catered for attendees and participants.
Kahl had also invited vintage car clubs display vehicles at the conference.
On the Friday night, a reception had been scheduled for LSCO Brown Event Center, which is located along the Old Spanish Trail.
Then on Saturday morning, people were invited to drive along the existing parts of the Old Spanish Trail in Orange County with a guide brochure using Kahl’s information gained through weeks of research and interviews about Orange.
Kahl said said she will give the brochures to groups in Orange to distribute.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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