Homesite of Dr. Edgar William Brown

A biography printed about 1910 shows how many fields Dr. Brown worked besides medicine. He practiced in Orange until 1901, when he largely retired from it. By then he was vice president of the Lutcher-Moore Lumber Company and general manager and part owner of Dibert, Stark and Brown at Donner, Louisiana. The same account calls him the pioneer tobacco planter of Orange County, says he owned about 2,000 acres of rice farms and lists him as a director of the First National Bank. He died of cancer on June 16, 1917, and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Homesite of Dr. Edgar William Brown Following the example of his father Dr. Samuel M. Brown, Georgia native Edgar William Brown (1859-1917) became a practicing physician in Orange. In 1888 he married Carrie Launa Lutcher (1861-1941), daughter of the successful Orange lumberman Henry Jacob Lutcher. Brown, whose home was located at this site, became associated with the Lutcher timer enterprise in the development and management of the company's properties. He later took over as manager of the newly established Dibert, Stark and Brown Cypress Company operations in Louisiana. His success in the timber industry soon made him one of the leading lumbermen in the United States. In his later years Brown took an active interest in agriculture and was responsible for the clearing and cultivation of much area farmland. He also invested in the region's early oil production industry and directed various land development projects. Brown served for many years as mayor of Orange. An advocate of the city's commercial growth, he actively supported construction of a deep water port and the Intercoastal Canal. His early efforts were vital to Orange's development as a major center of shipping and trade. (1982)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stark Museum of Art — steps away
  A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.
• Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center — 1.0 mi
  More than 250 acres on Adams Bayou, begun by H. J. Lutcher Stark in 1937, with garden rooms, a cypress-tupelo swamp, a heronry blind and free pontoon tours in season.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 19 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 21 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.

More markers nearby

• The City of Orange — steps away
• Henry Jacob Lutcher Stark — steps away
• Orange Chamber of Commerce — steps away
• First United Methodist Church of Orange — steps away