The Texas Historical Commission is guiding visitors to the Orange Riverfront Pavilion and Boardwalk for a look at World War II history. The commission made video featuring interviews with local residents about the time period.
Jerry Pennington, president of the Orange County Historical Commission, said the state organization called him during the summer asking for assistance.
The video features Louis Fairchild, PhD., an Orange native who wrote a book of oral interviews about Orange during the war years. Also in the video are interviews with Carlton “Corky” Harmon, Joe Barrios and his wife, Dean. Harmon is a sixth generation from a pioneer Orange family. Barrios is a former president of Levingston Shipbuilding.
Dozens of historical photographs of local shipyards and workers are included in the video, which is three minutes and 22 seconds long. The video also features aerial shots of the vast Riverside housing complex for the shipyard workers and the schools.
Fairchild describes Orange before the war as a sleepy Southern town with 7,500 people, “including in the words of one person, all of the dogs.”
The boom in wartime shipbuilding drew tens of thousands of workers from all over the country to Orange. Fairchild said “some couldn’t read and write. Some coming from Louisiana couldn’t speak English.”
New footage was shot of the inside of some of the old, World War II shipyards and shows the wall of historical markers along the Sabine River and the boardwalk.
The video is part of the Texas Historical Commission’s Texas Time Travel tours. Tourist can download apps to allow the video to play on smart phones or tablets. In addition, travelers can activate a “geo alert” to let them know when they are near a historic site.
The tour touts that people can “view WW II shipbuilding facilities that line the Sabine River and a collection of historical markers that interpret Orange’s WWII history.”
Here’s a link to the video: http://texastimetravel.toursphere.com/en/orange-riverfront-boardwalk-and-pavilion-92285.html#&ui-state=dialog
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