About the Orange County Historical Society
The Orange County Historical Society works to document and preserve the history of Southeastern Texas along the Sabine River, where Orange County was carved out of Jefferson County on January 5, 1852. The society holds quarterly meetings that bring together researchers, genealogists, and history enthusiasts, and it promotes knowledge of county history through programs and publications. Volunteers write articles on Orange County topics, edit the society's journal, give public talks, staff booths at community events, and handle membership communications. The society does not operate a museum of its own; its mailing address is P.O. Box 1345, Orange, TX 77631-1345.
The society's principal publication is Las Sabinas, a journal of county history and genealogy. Through the society's partnership with the University of North Texas, 147 issues spanning the 1970s through the 2010s have been digitized and can be read free on The Portal to Texas History, along with two other local history books the society contributed. The journal is the best single starting point for anyone tracing an Orange County family, business, church, or neighborhood.
Orange County's story reflects the economic transformations that shaped Southeast Texas. The Texas and New Orleans Railroad reached Orange in 1861, shut down during the Civil War, and resumed in 1876, the same year Pennsylvanians Henry Jacob Lutcher and G. Bedell Moore founded the Lutcher-Moore Lumber Company. The county seat, originally named Madison, had become Orange in 1858, and the lumber boom brought three decades of prosperity before the Bland well discovery of 1913 opened the petroleum era that led to today's refining and chemical industries. The society documents these eras through its collections of photographs, documents, and oral histories.
Collections and Research Services
Research appointments are scheduled through the society's office, and board members assist visitors with research questions; contact the society at (409) 882-3083 to arrange a visit, and allow time for a reply since the group is volunteer-run. Before you call, search the digitized Las Sabinas issues on the Portal to Texas History, which are full-text searchable and cover decades of transcribed records and family histories. Our guides to free family history research and finding where someone is buried cover the county, state, and cemetery records to check alongside the journal. Fees, hours, and the current office location are not published online, so confirm them when you make contact.
Planning Your Visit
The Orange County Historical Society holds quarterly meetings and welcomes researchers interested in Southeastern Texas history; meeting dates and locations are announced on the society's Facebook page. For research appointments and inquiries, call (409) 882-3083 or write to P.O. Box 1345, Orange, TX 77631-1345. Visitors to Orange can also see the Heritage House Museum at 905 W. Division Street, the 1902 home of Jimmy Ochiltree Sims that remained in the family until 1977 and was restored as a museum by the Heritage House Association; it is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark and presents early-20th-century middle-class life in the region. Note that orangecountyhistory.org belongs to the Orange County Historical Society of California, not this Texas organization.
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