$2,830.00, site survey work $1,525.00 and landscape work $1,165.00. The board also passed Resolution 48, which required contractors working on any H.A.T.T. site to hire local laborers. King and Albers were directed to go to Ft. Worth to meet with U.S.H.A. personnel to formulate management plans, set rents, and create preliminary budgets for the two projects.

In the November 25, 1940, board meeting, members opened construction bids, designated certain dwellings for removal or demolition from the project site and authorized legal means to acquire real estate within site boundaries. At this meeting Hardy Brothers (G.P. Hardy and P.S. Hardy) were named lowest bidder on the General Construction Contract. The highest bidder was T.L. James & Company. The board named TEX 14-2 “Stevens Courts,” but no justification for the name selection was given in board minutes.

In May of 1941, Hardy Brothers Construction Company was asked to begin work on Stevens Courts as soon as possible. They would have a one-year contract at a total cost of $759,740.00 for both TEX 14-1 and TEX 14-2. A penalty of $50.00 per day would be assessed if the project took more than one year. Additionally, a number of Change Orders eliminated all extras, saving about $23,000.00 on the total construction cost of both TEX 14-1 and TEX 14-2.

At the September 1941 board meeting, board members passed Resolution 162, opening Bowie Courts (TEX 14-1) and Stevens Courts (TEX 14-2) as housing for construction workers involved with building Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant (L.S.A.A.P.) and Red River Arsenal Plant (R.R.A.P.). In the October board meeting members expressed concern that building a proposed total of four-hundred housing units in several housing projects, including Bowie and Stevens Courts, would overbuild the city, causing problems for the local economy. Also at the October meeting Buckley School and Church Furniture Company presented the low bid on gas ranges for the housing units at $10,454.25. Servel, Inc., got the contract to supply gas refrigerators.

In November the board established rent rates for defense plant workers based on their government defense grade of employment and the size of apartment they would be renting. Rents ranged from $25.00 per month for a one-bedroom apartment for a Grade 1 defense employee, to $93.00 per month for a four-bedroom apartment for a Grade 14 employee. While both Bowie Courts and Stevens Courts were initially opened to white defense plant workers early in 1942, it was not long before Bowie had been designated for white workers and Stevens for black workers.

Characteristics of the Stevens Courts population in 1943 showed some interesting details. In 1943, John H. Jackson was manager of Stevens and the project was fifty percent occupied. Gender statistics showed that forty-nine percent of residents were male while fifty-one percent were female. Employment statistics showed that eighty-seven percent of families living at Stevens had a wage earner working at either R.R.A.P. or L.S.A.A.P. Of those, forty-eight percent worked at R.R.A.D. and thirty-nine percent worked at L.S.A.A.P. Of those employed at a defense plant, all but three adults were listed as “laborers.” The remaining three were listed as “drivers.” Characteristics of the families living in Stevens Courts showed that five percent were single adults, forty-seven percent were couples, and forty-nine