"The Greatest Log House"

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Imagine a log building that's 320-feet long, with 124 huge logs standing as pillars (each log weighing over 50,000 pounds and big enough to provide lumber for a 5-room house). All of the logs were cut within 50 miles of a major U.S. city.

The location is Seattle, and the building was constructed for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific exposition of 1909.









"The whole front of the forestry building at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific exposition is a colonade, or, rather, a pergola of huge fir logs...In every one of the 124 huge logs of the colonade there is sufficient clear lumber to build a five-room bungalow, with enough in the rough left over for a woodshed and something in the way of a fence.... It is the largest log house ever erected. Any one of the big sticks will tip the beam at 50,000 pounds, and under each Is a pier of reinforced concrete. They are forty feet high and extend across the whole front of the structure, which Is 320 feet . All of them were cut within a radius of fifty miles of Seattle, and they were hauled to the exposition grounds over a railroad spur constructed for the purpose. During the exposition the structure will house the state's forestry exhibit; the manufacture of lumber being western Washington's chief Industry."

from A Great Exposition by Welford Beaton, The Pacific Monthly, Volume 22, July 1909

Other photos from:
https://books.google.com/books?id=4LAPAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA301#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://foresthistory.org/research/Galleries/EducationForesters2_Gallery/pages/FHS3328th.htm

 

Photos from
http://www.washington.edu/news/2009/03/05/lights-and-landscape-uw-profs-to-discuss-design-of-alaska-yukon-pacific-exposition/

 

Photos from
http://pauldorpat.com/2012/01/06/temple-of-timber-alaska-yukon-pacific-exposition-1909-u-w-campus/

 

From http://www.seattletimes.com/life/lifestyle/uwrsquos-hub-rises-where-lsquotemple-to-timberrsquo-once-stood/

Demolition in 1930

From http://pcad.lib.washington.edu/building/8167/

 

I didn't notice the writing on this photo until it was enlarged, it shows an 18" squared timber that's over 156 feet in length.

Another reference mentioned that there were two dice on display that were each 6-feet high (solid blocks of wood, of course.)

 

By 1915, the building was already having serious problems with bark beetles and fungus. It was also not a useful building for the University of Washington, which became the owner.



From
Monumental Timber Building Endangered by Rot, Engineering News, Volume 74,G.H. Frost, 1915

 

Here are some photos of the Chateau Montebello being constructed. Amazing that it was built in only 4 months. (3,500 workers were used.)












Previous photos from http://www.albertburger.com/log%20chateau.htm



Hexagonal fireplace in the rotunda, with two mezzanine levels.
(Photo from Wikipedia article.)

 

Some information about the logs used in the Canadian structure:

"The largest shipment of logs in the history of the Canadian lumber industry... from Pacific coast forests... seventy-five flat cars... 8,636 logs... all peeled [Western] Red Cedar, ranging in length from 18 to 60 feet... [Seasoned for at least] nine months, and most of the logs have been seasoned for more than a year..."

From The Montreal Gazette, March 20, 1930, page 6


Some more details (diameter and taper of the logs; dealing with expansion and contraction; etc.) can be found in The Ottawa Citzen, June 28, 1930.