On Dec. 12, 2006, Mayor Tom Huerkamp survived a special recall election in which Guy Cooper challenged the incumbent. Under the Huerkamp Administration, the town built a $1.3 million town hall, ended a Prohibition Era ban on the sale of alcohol in town, and renamed most of the town's roads, along with removing highway signs referencing the unincorporated communities of Cory, Eckert and Austin. During the mid-2000s, Orchard City's board of trustees meetings were emotional events that packed dozens of citizens into the gallery and typically ended with sheriff's deputies separating Huerkamp loyalists from detractors. In April 2008, Mayor Huerkamp lost his re-election bid to then-trustee, Don Suppes.