U. S. S. Aulick
Orange, Orange County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On September 9, 1940, a federal contract worth $82 million was issued to the Consolidated Steel Company to construct 12 Fletcher class naval destroyers here in Orange, Texas. This and other contracts coupled with the subsequent building of major shipyard facilities along the city's riverfront lifted the city out of a prolonged and deep economic decline which began in the early 1930s with the closing of area sawmills. The community celebrated the laying of the keels of the U. S. S. Aulick and U. S. S. Charles Ausburne on May 14, 1941. The Aulick became the first naval destroyer to be built in Texas and on Texas Independence Day, March 2, 1942, it was christened and launched amid a crowd of 6,000 people. The Aulick represented the second U. S. Naval warship to be named after War of 1812 Navy veteran John H. Aulick (1787-1861). by 1946 all 12 destroyers and over four hundred other ships had been completed here at a cost of over $876 million. Orange's well-developed shipyards encouraged major companies to build plants along the riverfront. Several petrochemical and industrial concerns followed suit in the 1950s and 1960s. Wartime shipyards operated by Consolidated, Levingston, and Weaver converted to peacetime activities.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In September 1940 a federal contract sent Consolidated Steel to build twelve Fletcher-class destroyers at Orange, lifting the city out of the deep decline that followed the closing of its sawmills. The keels of the Aulick and the Charles Ausburne were laid in 1941, and on Texas Independence Day in 1942 the Aulick — the first naval destroyer built in Texas — was launched before a crowd of thousands, part of more than four hundred wartime vessels completed on the riverfront.
Why it matters
Orange's wartime shipyards show how World War II industrial mobilization transformed a struggling Gulf town into a lasting center of shipbuilding and petrochemicals.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Orange sits in the far southeastern corner of Texas, on the Sabine River at the Louisiana line. For generations its economy ran on timber, and the sawmills along the river gave the town its living. In the early 1930s those mills closed, and Orange sank into a long, deep decline just as the Great Depression was hitting the whole country.
By 1940 the world outside was changing fast. War had already broken out in Europe, and the United States was beginning to rearm even before it entered the fighting. The federal government started placing enormous shipbuilding contracts. Towns with deep water, space for shipways and workers who needed jobs suddenly had something the nation urgently wanted.
Orange had all three. In September 1940 a federal contract worth $82 million went to the Consolidated Steel Company to build twelve Fletcher-class destroyers there. Within a few years the riverfront that had gone quiet with the sawmills was one of the busiest places in the state.
People & events
The Aulick's story begins with a celebration. On May 14, 1941, the community gathered to mark the laying of the keels of two destroyers, the Aulick and the Charles Ausburne. For a town that had spent a decade watching its mills go dark, those first steel beams were a promise that work had come back.
The Aulick became the first naval destroyer ever built in Texas. Its launch date carried a double meaning for Texans: March 2, 1942, Texas Independence Day. By then the United States had been at war for less than three months. About 6,000 people turned out to watch the ship christened and slide into the water, which is a remarkable crowd for a town the size of Orange.
The ship took its name from John H. Aulick, a naval officer who served in the War of 1812. He was the second U.S. warship to carry his name. Tying a brand-new destroyer to a veteran of that earlier war was part of a long Navy tradition of linking each generation of ships to the sailors who came before.
The Aulick was only the start. By 1946 all twelve destroyers had been finished, along with more than four hundred other vessels, at a total cost of over $876 million. The workers in Orange yards run by Consolidated, Levingston and Weaver turned the town into a serious part of the national war effort.
Its place in the American story
The Aulick is a local example of one of the great stories of World War II: the mobilization of American industry. The United States won the war partly on the battlefield and partly in shipyards, factories and assembly plants, many of them in places that had never built anything like a warship before.
The Fletcher class was the backbone of the Navy's wartime destroyer force. These were fast, capable ships built in large numbers at yards across the country. Orange was one of those yards, which ties this riverfront directly to the fighting fleet.
The marker also points to what came after the war. The shipyards drew major companies to the riverfront, petrochemical and industrial plants followed in the 1950s and 1960s, and the wartime yards turned to peacetime work. This pattern played out across the Gulf Coast and the Sun Belt. Federal wartime spending did more than win a war: it reshaped regional economies for decades.
If you visit
Stand near this marker and picture the Orange riverfront around 1942: cranes, half-built hulls and thousands of workers. The river is still the reason the town is here, and the industry along it is a direct descendant of the wartime yards.
When you look out toward the Sabine, remember the sawmill years that came before the shipyards and the long slump in between. That economic rescue is as much the point of this marker as the ship. For many local families, the destroyer contracts meant the difference between hard times and steady work.
Orange is right on Interstate 10 at the Texas–Louisiana line, so it makes an easy stop on any trip along the Gulf Coast. It's a good place to stretch your legs and think about how a single government contract could change a whole community, and it fits well with other World War II home-front sites along the coast.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John H. Aulick
Related events
- · World War II
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Levingston Shipbuilding Company and Edward T. Malloy
Orange, TX
Irish immigrant brothers bought an existing Orange shipyard in 1859 and built wooden ships for decades, a trade their descendants carried into the steel age. Under Edward T. Malloy, who joined in 1939 and later bought control, Levingston Shipbuilding boomed during World War II, delivering 160 tugs, tankers, and rescue vessels to the Army and Navy between 1941 and 1945. After the war it reinvented itself as a world leader in offshore drilling rigs before closing in 1985.
Riverside Addition: World War II Housing in Orange
Orange, TX
When the U.S. Navy placed shipbuilding orders in Orange on the eve of World War II, a sleepy Sabine River town of 7,400 swelled past 60,000 as Depression-weary workers chased steady wages at the Levingston, Consolidated Western, and Weaver yards. To house them, the federal government threw up the Riverside Addition in 1942 — thousands of prefabricated 'demountable' duplexes, three schools, and shops, all within walking distance of the yards to conserve rationed fuel and tires. Billed as the largest federal housing project ever undertaken, it was always meant to be temporary, and after the war the units were sold, moved, or torn down, with the last gone by the 1980s.
Office of the Supervisor of Shipbuilding and Consolidated Steel Corporation
Orange, TX
Orange's position at a bend in the Sabine River beside vast pine forests made it a natural shipbuilding town, but by 1930 the timber was exhausted, the sawmills closed, and the Depression bore down. In 1940 Texas lawmakers secured a federal appropriation to build landing craft and destroyers there, establishing the Navy's Office of Supervisor of Shipbuilding and a sprawling yard operated largely by Consolidated Steel. Beginning in 1941 the yard launched the first warships built on the Gulf Coast for the U.S. government, ultimately producing 39 destroyers and 100 destroyer escorts during World War II.
Weaver Shipbuilding
Orange, TX
Joe Weaver opened his shipyard on the Sabine at Orange in 1897, and for generations the Weaver family built barges, tugboats, and shrimp boats along the Texas Gulf Coast. During World War II the yard turned out wooden minesweepers and sub chasers — vessels built of wood precisely because they would not trip the magnetic mines the enemy laid in coastal waters. Sold and then reclaimed by the family, the site remains in Weaver hands and in maritime use to this day.