Riverside Addition: World War II Housing in Orange

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. You're rolling through Orange County now, and the Sabine River's not far off, so let me paint you a picture of what this stretch of Texas looked like when the whole world caught fire. We're talking about the second World War, and Orange, Texas, was about to be transformed in ways nobody could've fully imagined.

In 1940, the city held about 7,400 souls. By the time the war was over, more than 60,000 people were calling it home. That is not a typo.

That is one of those numbers that stops you mid-sentence. Now, how did a river town swell like that? Let me walk you through it.

As the nation was preparing for possible entry into the war, the U.S. Navy Office of Shipbuilding placed orders with three shipyards right there in Orange: Levingston Shipbuilding Company, Consolidated Western Steel Corporation, and Weaver Shipyards. Three yards.

And when the United States entered the war in 1941, production kept right on growing. Here's the thing you have to understand about the people who came flooding in. Countless jobs had been lost during the Great Depression.

Steady work, real work, was something folks had been hungry for, and the shipyards were offering exactly that. So they came. By the thousands, they came.

And Orange, bless its heart, did not have anywhere near enough houses to put them in. The federal government stepped in and, in 1942, started the Riverside Addition Housing Project. The location was no accident.

Riverside Addition sat along the Sabine River, within walking distance of the shipyards. That detail matters, because fuel and tire rationing was in effect, and getting workers to their shifts without burning precious resources was part of the wartime equation. The site took on a fan shape, and it filled up fast with thousands of prefabricated duplexes, the kind the planners called demountable, meaning they were considered temporary from the start.

In 1943, an addition expanded the already vast housing area further still. By then, Riverside had three elementary schools and had spawned local businesses all around it. At the time, it was the largest federal housing project ever undertaken.

Let that settle for a second. The largest. Ever.

Temporary or not, this was something enormous. Then the war ended, and the math changed. The government sold some of the units, moved others, demolished many more.

The city of Orange never took control of the development, due to concerns over inadequate infrastructure. The project that had practically built itself overnight was slowly, piece by piece, taken apart. The last houses were removed in the 1980s.

Today, there are few physical reminders left of Riverside Addition, of the thousands of duplexes, the three schools, the whole fan-shaped city-within-a-city that rose up along the Sabine River because a nation needed ships, and Orange, Texas, answered. Sometimes the most vital things leave the quietest footprint.

What the marker says

The second World War catapulted Orange into a period of unparalleled industrial growth. In 1940, as the nation prepared for possible entry into the war, the U.S. Navy Office of Shipbuilding placed orders with three shipyards: Levingston Shipbuilding Company, Consolidated Western Steel Corporation and Weaver Shipyards. Production continued to grow after the U.S. entered the war in 1941. Countless jobs had been lost during the Great Depression, and the potential for steady work brought thousands to Orange. The influx of workers increased the city's population from 7,400 in 1940 to more than 60,000 by the end of the war. To meet the resulting critical housing shortage, the federal government started the Riverside Addition Housing Project in 1942. Located along the Sabine River, Riverside Addition was within walking distance of the shipyards, thereby complying with fuel and tire rationing demands and maximizing wartime production. The fan-shaped site soon included thousands of "demountable" (prefabricated) duplexes, considered to be temporary. Expanded with an addition in 1943, the vast Riverside housing area had three elementary schools and also spawned local businesses. At the time, Riverside Addition was the largest federal housing project ever undertaken. After the war, the government sold, moved or demolished many of the units. The city of Orange never took control of the development due to concerns over inadequate infrastructure. Removal of the last houses took place in the 1980s, and today there are few physical reminders of the project that proved vital to the home front mission during World War II. 2007