Riverside Addition Shows How Shipbuilding Remade Orange

The corner of Green Avenue and Simmons Drive carries a big war story in a quiet spot. In 1940 and 1941, shipyards needed workers faster than Orange could house them. Rentals were scarce. The city's count jumped from 7,400 in 1940 to more than 60,000 by the end of World War II.

The federal government answered in 1942 with Riverside Addition. The fan-shaped project sat along the Sabine River and within walking distance of the shipyards. That helped workers save fuel and tires while production stayed close to the river. Its duplexes were meant to be temporary, but the area grew into a wartime district with three elementary schools and local businesses.

Much of that place did not stay. After the war, many units were sold, moved, or torn down, and the last houses came down in the 1980s. The schools and local businesses gave the project a town feel during the boom. A quiet historical marker now does a lot of work. It points to a vanished neighborhood that once held the people behind Orange's shipbuilding boom. The marker keeps that memory public.