History of Stevens Courts
2220 W. 15th Street
Texarkana, Texas
Housing Authority of Texarkana, Texas

Stevens Courts Housing Project was the second of five housing projects constructed in the Texarkana, Texas, area in the early 1940s and 1950s. It was a result of an ongoing trend that began in Europe in the 1920s to provide public housing for the poor. By 1933 the Public Works Administration under Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Administration adopted the idea and proceeded to construct public housing as a means of creating employment during the Great Depression and as a means of providing housing for the poor and unemployed. In 1937 the first public housing project in Texas, called Cedar Springs Place, was built in Dallas, Texas.

The United States Housing Act of 1937 required that construction of new public housing units had to be matched by the removal of an equal number of substandard dwellings from the local housing supply. This was the impetus for the Housing Authority of Texarkana, Texas, to be created on March 1, 1940. At that time Texarkana had numerous inhabited substandard dwellings and city administrators were looking for a way to eliminate this dangerous level of housing.

The March 1st organizational meeting of Texarkana’s housing authority named as commissioners Frank L. King, Ralston Crowder, Walter Hussman, John D. Raffaelli, Arthur E. Kackley and Raymond H. Albers. City Attorney Ed B. Levee and United States Housing Authority Adviser J.I. Campbell were present at this meeting held in the McCartney Hotel on Front Street. Frank L. King was elected chairman of the housing authority and John D. Raffaelli was named vice chairman. Raymond H. Albers was elected secretary and was hired to conduct a survey of housing conditions in Texarkana at a flat fee of $150.00.

Once initiated, Texarkana’s housing authority moved quickly calling a Special Meeting for March 5, 1940. At this meeting several motions were proposed: Motion 1: If $500,000.00 could be obtained for the Texarkana housing project, the entire amount would be used to construct a housing project for white people. Motion 2: The Housing Authority of Texarkana, Texas (H.A.T.T.), applied to the United States Housing Authority (U.S.H.A.) for enough funding to cover housing needs as reflected by Albers’ survey. Motion 3: Raymond H. Albers would be hired as Executive Director of H.A.T.T. at a salary of $50.00 per month until the U.S.H.A. application was approved; thereafter, his salary would be $200.00 per month.

Albers’ survey showed that a single housing project would not cover housing needs in the city. It was then decided to pursue funding for two housing projects, one for white citizens and another for black citizens.

Construction of housing projects the size of those proposed for Texarkana required the hiring of an experienced architect, or team of architects. To this end H.A.T.T. considered three architects for the job: Mr. Garren of Ft. Worth, Mr. J.N.