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The December 5, 1921 edition of the Orange Daily Leader reported on things that were making for a busy week in Orange.

The Orange oil field was becoming more active. The Leader reported “an unusually optimistic spirit and atmosphere in the field because of the wonderful success that two of the wells considered among the best in the field had shown on the past Saturday and Sunday.”

With the development of the two wells the amount of producing wells had grown to 23 and production had increased by about 4500 barrels per day.

The No.1 Winfree well of the Gulf Production Company increased from 1500 barrels per day to between 2750 and 3500 barrels per day.

The well was about 100 feet from the Orange Petroleum Company’s Winfree No. 3 which had come in as an average gusher only a few days before.

Smiling Van, a “globe-trotting” rope walker and “doer of other stunts” had arrived in Orange from San Francisco on his way to New York City. Van left San Francisco on April 19 and expected to be in New York City by July, walking all the way.

When not doing stunts of all kinds for expense money, Van worked as a correspondent for the New York Times and the Frisco Ledger.

Three Ford cars had been wrecked about 3 o’clock the night of Sunday December 4. All three cars had been severely damaged, but the occupants of all three cars were uninjured.

The drivers of the cars were Smith Mitchell, Lovelace Schriber, and Mayo DeVille.

A report from the recent membership drive of the carnival and circus committee of the Y.M.B.L. was scheduled to be given at a general membership meeting of the league in the meeting room of the Sabine Club. A smoker was scheduled to follow the meeting.

Through the efforts of Ike L. Hill, General Manager of the Orange Chamber of Commerce, the Southern Pacific Railroad would be admitted to the terminal facilities of the Dock Brown Warehouse in West Orange.

The arrangement would allow the cars of the Southern Pacific Railroad to be received at the tower house by the Gulf Coast Lines to be handled on the switch tracks and returned to the Southern Pacific lines at the same place after unloading.

It was understood that the four or five oil field supply concerns who had leased ground near the switch terminals for supply stations and warehouses would begin the work of laying out their grounds and assembling materials for early construction.

Alfred Abran, and employee of the Houston Construction company was injured at its mixing plant while working on city streets was “rendered unconscious” when the apron on the mixer fell on him.

The Perry House, a two story frame structure, occupied by A.W. Moore and family caught fire at 8 0’clock Saturday night December 5. The blaze started in an apartment occupied by tenants.

The blaze started in a pile of trash in a corner of one of the rooms. There was a “chemical apparatus” available to put out the fire. The damage was minimal.

The Lake Elmdale, a ship under charter to the Lykes Brothers Lines of Galveston was in the port of Orange to receive cargo.

This was the second visit of the Elmdale to Orange. Since her first visit she had touched nine different ports in the West Indies.

Jesse Frick, formerly of Orange, was a crew member. He presented friends with coconuts in their natural state before the outer husks had been removed.

Members of the crew brought clusters of three to five coconuts they had plucked off of the wild growing trees on the island of Haiti.

“And now you know.”