Moving ahead
After nearly 70 years, Stevens Courts will make way for townhouses;
last tenants to be relocated

By: Greg Bischof - Texarkana Gazette - Published: 07/26/2010

The Housing Authority of Texarkana, Texas, is razing the Stevens Courts housing complex this fall. In preparation, tenants are being moved to other HATT complexes.

Fifteen buildings which once offered 124 apartments for thousands of people over 68 years are now part of a nearly ghost community.

As the Housing Authority of Texarkana, Texas, finishes relocating the last few tenants of the vintage 1942 Stevens Courts public housing complex, HATT officials move forward with plans to demolish 14 of the 15 Stevens structures and build in their place new townhouse-style dwellings atop the former 8-acre site.

The historic complex is bordered by Milam Street on the east, West 16th Street on the north, Peach Street on the west and West 15th Street on the south.

Although a bid for demolishing the old brick-frame structures is still pending, HATT Executive Director Naomi Byrne said plans continue to roll forward for building the new complexes, which will closely resemble those recently constructed on the old Covington Homes site, now known as the Oaks at Rose Hill.

The new homes, which will be just part of the overall Rose Hill Neighborhood revitalization effort, will cost about $18 million and will be known as Pecan Ridge, Byrne said.

Stevens Courts should be fully vacant by the middle of next month and ready for demolition this fall.

Once demolition crews raze the Stevens structures, a record of their near seven-decade existence will be found only in documented text and black and white photographs at the HATT office.

Two years ago, Dr. Beverly J. Rowe, a local professor of history, anthropology and sociology, researched and wrote a detailed history of Stevens Courts, which opened in January 1942.

During a HATT Board of Commissioners meeting on Nov. 25, 1940, the Hardy Brothers construction firm received a federal contract to build the Stevens Courts as well as Bowie Courts (renamed Covington Homes in 1993). The contract called for both projects to be built for $759,740 within one year.

Work started on Stevens Courts as a defense housing project in early September 1941. At the time, HATT board records indicated nothing on how the board decided on the name “Stevens Courts,” according to Rowe’s research.

Initial rent charged at Stevens Courts ranged from $25 for one-bedroom units to $93 for four-bedroom units. The complex, consisting of 15 buildings, opened Jan. 9, 1942, initially to segregated “whites only” defense workers employed at the Lone Star Army Ammunition Plant as well as at the Red River Arsenal (later renamed Red River Army Depot). However, a short time later, Stevens became designated for black defense workers.

HATT board members set the family income level not to exceed $6,696 as a chief qualification for residency at Stevens Courts, according to Rowe’s research.

One year after their opening, the Stevens Courts population statistics showed 65 percent of the 124 units were occupied. Of the adults living there, 5 percent were single while 95 percent were married couples and 87 percent of all residents living at Stevens had a wage earner working at either Lone Star or Red River. By 1950 all but one apartment there was occupied.

However, the 1959 survey showed noticeable changes in Stevens’ population demographics. While there was still an 85 percent occupancy rate, 80 percent of the population was single and only 20 percent were married couples. Of the overall population, only 31 percent of the population was male, while 69 percent was female and 30 percent of the overall population was unemployed.

By 1970, the disparity between married and single adults widened to show only 8 percent of the tenants married, while single tenant numbers rose to 92 percent. Also, of the overall tenant population, 78 percent were female with 22 percent male—and 65 percent of the overall number of tenants were unemployed, according to Rowe’s research.

By the 1980s, the Stevens Courts occupancy rate fell to 65 percent with 84 percent of the shrinking residency unemployed. Single women headed up 94 percent of the families there.

The start of the 1990s brought on a continual drop in Stevens’ occupancy rate, with only 41 percent of the units in use with the number of unemployed tenants rising to 90 percent. Stevens did see a brief resurgence in occupancy starting in 1995, which rose to 66 percent, but the number of unemployed residents grew to 94 percent with 98 percent of all residents designated as single.

Ten years ago, the occupancy rate dipped to 37 percent with 100 percent of the residents being unemployed and 96 percent of them single, according to Rowe’s research.

Eventually, Stevens Courts could no longer satisfy U.S. disability requirements and its residency continued to fall, owing in large measure to the inadequacy of the aged buildings. Earlier this year, HATT slated them for demolition, with only the Stevens Courts’ administration building to be preserved on site as a museum project.