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Consolidated Steel Shipyards

Formed when Union Iron Works merged with two smaller companies in 1928, the Consolidated Steel Corporation was a major builder of U.S. Navy ships during World War II. The company had two ship building facilities located in Orange, Texas and Wilmington, California. These two plants were a direct result of a Maritime Commission contract awarded to Consolidated Steel Corporation in 1940.

The Consolidated Steel Corporation built a new shipyard in Wilmington, California in 1941. The original plant was equipped with four ship ways, but was later increased to eight due to the increasing war time demands. The company's plant worked as an emergency facility with its 95 acres of Wilmington mud flats. At its peak, some 12.000 welders, pipe fitters, and steel tradesmen were employed at Consolidated Steel's Wilmington shipyard.

This temporary, yet very productive shipyard, had more than 160 ships delivered in a 3-year span from 1941-1944. It closed down shortly after the war due to lack of Defense Department contracts.

Consolidated Steel's larger plant was located on the Sabine River in Orange, Texas, and was expanded in 1941 with the funding of the United States Maritime Commission. The plant had one of the most impressive ship building records during the war. During its peak construction period, the Orange, Texas shipyard employed more than 20,000 workers. Between May of 1941 and December of 1945, Consolidated built 39 destroyers (DD), 102 Destroyer escorts (DE), 105 landing craft (LCI(L)), and 24 deck barges (DPC).

With these two major shipbuilding facilities, Consolidate Steel became one of the top producers of warships. With a large percentage of the trained craftsmen heading to war, the company had a hard time finding enough men to fill their needs. More than 32,000 welders, riggers, joiners, boiler makers, and pipe fitters were in demand at the two facilities. In Orange, Texas, Consolidated headed to nearby Beaumont to find laborers. With gas rationing making it hard for anyone to drive the 60 miles to Orange, Consolidated decided to procure a train to carry the several thousand workers to the plant.

For the duration of the war, most of Consolidated's 20,000 employees stayed in tents or shacks around town. The company also found cheaper ways of building the structures in the yard, including using the cheaply acquired asbestos that later would be linked to several cases of mesothelioma in the area. It is reported that nearly half of Consolidated's workforce never stepped foot on either plant. Consolidated Steel used many individual contractors to deliver preassemble parts to their facilities. Train tracks were a convenient way to have large pre-made parts delivered straight to the hulls. Since both plants were located on major railways and waterways, logistics of delivery of both pre-construction and completed vessels was never really an issue.

Consolidated Steel Corporation closed both of its ship building plants shortly after the war, and the land they both rested on has been turned over to the United States Navy. For decades after WWII, both the Orange, Texas and Wilmington, California shipyards were used by the Navy as a place to store out of commission vessels.

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