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



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