Office of the Supervisor of Shipbuilding and Consolidated Steel Corporation

Orange's location at a bend in the Sabine River, adjacent to the immense virgin pine forests of southeast Texas, made it an ideal site for shipbuilding. However, by 1930 all of the easily obtainable timber was exhausted, and the associated sawmills closed. The Depression of the 1930s also weighed heavily on the population of Orange. In July 1940, Congressman Martin Dies and Vice-President John Nance Garner attached an amendment to a large general appropriations bill to build twenty-four surf-landing crafts and twelve destroyers in Orange. The Office of Supervisor of Shipbuilding, USN, Orange, Texas, was established at this time, with CDR E.B. Perry as the first supervisor. The supervisor was responsible for directing the construction of the thirty-six crafts, and also the establishment of a shipyard in Orange to support the endeavor. The facility was built on sixty-five acres at a bend in the Sabine River. Levingston Shipbuilding's tugboat and barge shipyard occupied a small portion of the west side, and the remainder was occupied by Consolidated Steel Corporation's steel fabricating plant, where the Office of the Supervisor was also located. On May 14, 1941, construction began at Consolidated Steel on the Destroyers USS Aulick and USS Charles Ausburne, the first two warships constructed on the gulf coast for the U.S. government. In total, thirty-nine destroyers and 100 destroyer escorts were built at the Consolidated Steel Corporation yard during World War II. After the war, the Naval facility prepared ships for storage in the Naval Reserve Fleet as the United States Naval Inactive Ship Naintenance Facility. (2008)

Office of the Supervisor of Shipbuilding and Consolidated Steel Corporation is a historical marker in Orange, Orange County, dedicated in 2008. It is one of 66 historical markers documented in Orange County in the Texas Historical Commission Atlas, among 77 historic sites cataloged across the county.

The site sits at 30.0943, -93.7263 near Orange. The nearest cataloged historic site is Levingston Shipbuilding Company and Edward T. Malloy (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include U. S. S. Aulick, Riverside Addition: World War II Housing in Orange, and Weaver Shipbuilding.

This record corresponds to Texas Historical Commission Atlas #5507014845. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.