The Orange Leader

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about The Orange Leader. Now settle in, because this is a story about something that outlasted just about everything else in Orange County. A newspaper.

And not just any newspaper. One that started in 1875 and kept on going for over a century. That's a lot of ink.

A lot of paper. A lot of mornings. It began as The Orange Weekly Tribune, run by a man named A.

P. Harris, who wasn't primarily a newspaper man at all. He was a general mercantile merchant.

So right from the start, this publication had a certain practical, boots-on-the-ground quality to it. A man who sold goods to a community decided that community also needed news. And so he gave it to them.

Now, what happened next is where things get interesting, and a little dizzying if you're trying to keep up. The paper passed through subsequent owners, merged with other newspapers, and the masthead started shapeshifting. It became The Orange Leader.

Then The Orange Leader and Weekly Tribune. Then The Orange Daily Tribune. Then, in what might be the most dramatic detour of the whole journey, it became The Citizen-Record Consolidated.

That name alone sounds like it survived a negotiation. And then, after all of that wandering through names and owners and mergers, it came back around to The Orange Leader. Where it started, more or less.

Through every one of those changes, through every new owner and every new name on that masthead, the paper kept doing the same thing it set out to do in 1875. Keeping the community of Orange informed. Local matters, state matters, national matters, international matters.

All of it. There's something quietly remarkable about that kind of persistence. Names change.

Owners change. But the job stays the same.

What the marker says

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