The Tournalaid Homes
Tournalayer Machine
Tournalaid Home in Vicksburg, Mississippi c. 1950
During the mid-century prefabricated housing boom, the industrial manufacturer R.G. LeTourneau invented the Tournalayer, a machine which would produce a concrete “house-a-day”. Initially used to create modernist housing for his employees, LeTourneau’s machine was later marketed and used all over the world. While the first Tournalaid community took shape in Vicksburg, Mississippi during the early 1940s, construction began on the Longview housing in 1946 making it the second Tournalaid community to be built. Unfortunately, all of the Tournalaid buildings in Vicksburg have been removed or significantly altered, and these two homes in Longview are all that remains of the eighty homes that once formed a neighborhood on the southern end of the old LeTourneau Industries Plant.
These last two Longview Tournalaid houses are currently owned by Komatsu and are scheduled to be destroyed in early 2024 as part of the company’s plans to expand and develop the site. Efforts by the Machine-Built Architecture Conservancy are currently underway to permanently relocate these two buildings to a nearby site, but the outcome is far from certain. The plight of these last two Longview Tournalaid homes needs to be broadcast to a statewide audience to cultivate opportunities for the funding and support needed to save these buildings from demolition.
Learn More:
Why These Ugly, Abandoned Longview Homes May Be Worth Saving, Texas Monthly
Preservation Texas trying to save special pieces of history in East Texas, KETK News
LOCATION: 2616 & 2620 MacArthur Street, Longview (Gregg County)
DESIGNATION: None
STATUS: Endangered
OWNER: Komatsu
RESOURCE TYPE: Residential
YEAR LISTED: 2023
