Found out the old growth fir in my attic is from a forest that burned down in 1902

I was pulling up some subfloor in a 1920s bungalow in Portland and saw the mill stamp on a joist. Honestly, I looked it up and that specific timber company only logged from one area that had a massive fire. Tbh it made me think about how much history is in the bones of these old houses. Has anyone else found timber with a story like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

wendyg431mo ago

Wow, did the stamp have a date on it too?

the_richard1mo ago

Man, I feel that. Trying to read those old stamps can be a real pain. The ink gets faded or the wood grain messes with it. Sometimes you just have to squint and guess, and even then you might be wrong. It's a cool find though, any old mark like that tells a little story.

nancy8171mo ago

Take a picture of that stamp for sure (the light has to be just right sometimes). I always check for old newspaper scraps or bottle caps under the subfloor too, people left all sorts of stuff.