Wade Hall Wrote:
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> These era
> section house buildings were actually "kit built"
> structures, with the full-dimension lumber pre-cut
> at the sawmill. In the early days, the sawmill
> primarily used was at CaƱon City and that is
> probably where the lumber for the Cumbres and
> Sublette section houses was sourced. Many years
> ago, when the Friends were restoring the roof of
> the section house at Sublette, I saw some evidence
> of the structural lumber having been
> numbered--likely to guide the carpenters in how to
> assemble the building. Amazingly, the roof
> supports on the Sublette section house--110 years
> old when we were working on it--were still seeping
> pitch.
When we pulled the roof off of the Cumbres section house we found much the same thing - lots of green wood, green to the point that the roofing planks still had bark on them. And many of them were Aspen. The thing I'm a little doubtful of is that they would have brought in rough hewn lumber, it seems that if they were going to bother they would have at least bothered to remove the bark.
On the other hand, the building still has a lot of very solid timbers which can be very difficult to hammer into, and / or pull nails out of. All of which makes me think that the "kit" aspect might have at least included framing (probably oak) but that at least some of the planking was sourced locally.
Don