This e mail was misplaced because I attempted to include an early photograph
of St. Mary's in a pin heads e mail.  Bad Bad!  So here is the text.  If you
want to see St. Mary's respond and I will e mail it directly to you.  The
street scene was a bit large to scan so you will have to find that issue of
Life if your want to see it.

Bill




From: William  Gould <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Darling, all I want is that you should be a pinhead -- Arlene Croce" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Monday, August 19, 2002 7:41 AM
Subject: Re: Balloon Framing vs. Platform Framing


Reference:

LIFE, the 100 events that shaped American, bicentennial issue, 1975, page 13, #7

The 'ballon-frame' house 1833

Photo # 1, The first balloon-framed structure was St. Mary's Church in Chicago.  An old photo of the structure.

Photo # 2, Caption, Within days a new section of Oklahoma territory was opened for settlement in 1889, East Guthrie was already half built.  Balloon-frame structures had sprung up on one side of the street and would soon replace the tents on the other side.  The photo graphically shows balloon construction in 1889 in its various stages and the methods of applying siding.


A technique of construction still used today helped get the West settled in short order

"The actual building of the West took place at a gallop-in each of a thousand nowheres a crowd of tents went up in one day, construction started the next and within weeks another bustling frontier town had materialized.  Largely responsible for this pace was a new method of building called "balloon framing" (because its detractors predicted that the prairie winds would blow the houses up and away like balloons).  Invented about 1833 by a carpenter named Agustus Deodat Taylor, the technique, which is still used in most U.S. houses today, called for a cagelike framework of two by fours set close together, to which roof and siding were then nailed to complete the shell of the house.  Previously, houses had been constructed on a frame of massive, heavy beams-the way barns are built-and required much less time and expertise to put up.  But with handy-sized lumber and machine made nails being cheaply mass-produced  
by 1850s, a balloon frame could be knocked together by a team of amateurs in a matter of hours.  And when they turned out to be even sturdier than the old style houses, Taylor's invention was adopted everywhere in America."


Bill 

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>