NewswireToday - /newswire/ - Superior, WI, United States, 11/18/2007 - A Wisconsin company is reclaiming and recycling old-growth lumber from a gargantuan 19th Century grain elevator. Nearly 1 million board feet of Eastern White Pine and White Oak have been salvaged, with another 1 million to go.

Nearly 1 million board feet of old-growth lumber has been reclaimed from what was once the biggest grain elevator in the world, its owner reported this week.

Globe Elevator #1, the terminal in a massive complex on the edge of Lake Superior, was completed in 1887 and contained some 2 million BF of Eastern White Pine and other wood species. Standing 150 feet high, it had a footprint of 20,000 square feet. Two ancillary structures went up within two years, and together the three elevators had a capacity of 5 million bushels.

For a cool century, until they were abandoned by the Peavey Co., the elevators disgorged Midwestern wheat and other commodities into freighters that sailed through the St. Lawrence Seaway to feed people as far away as Europe. Now Elevator #1 is being dismantled – stick by stick – by Wisconsin Woodchuck LLC, a reclaimed-lumber company established in 2005.

On Saturday the company’s owner and CEO, David Hozza, said the deconstruction is nearly half finished and the wood is already being re-used to build custom homes.

"Timber framers and contractors come from all over the country to pick out beams and dimension lumber," said Hozza. "This proves that these great old buildings don't have to be demolished and tossed into landfills."

Because the scale of the elevator is Bunyan-esque, the deconstruction has been slow and painstaking. The top floors housed 10 cast-iron pulley wheels, weighing 4,400 pounds apiece. There were also three gigantic grain distributors, each of which fed grain into a steel octopus that directed the contents into one of the 133 bins. The metalwork had to be carefully removed before the deconstruction crew could begin salvaging the wood.

The perimeter of the building was constructed of 2x8 planks pancaked on top of each other to form 8-inch-thick walls. Inside was a honeycomb of bin walls made of 2x6's and reinforced with 12x12 oak beams up to 24 feet long. The bin floor was supported by vertical trios of 12x14-inch timbers 18 feet high.

Hozza estimates the three Globe elevators contain about 5 million BF of dimension lumber and 1 million BF of timbers. All of it has the typical distressed look of antique lumber, with square nail holes and characteristic notches and mortises.

Agency / Source: Wisconsin Woodchuck, LLC

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