Re: Pacific Hotel photo of 1886

Posted by John Greenly on Oct 30, 2017; 4:05pm
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/Pacific-Hotel-photo-of-1886-tp9866p9884.html

Hi John,

a minor correction-  if you look more carefully at the photo of the depot during renovation you'll see that the dark surface you mention is not painted, it's a material like tar paper that is commonly laid under shingles or in this case clapboards as a layer of weatherproofing.  I wonder if some of your puzzlements about this building come from unfamiliarity with American building materials and practices of the past (and present).  I don't mean this as a criticism,  I just wonder if your thoughts would be helped by studying this a bit.  I'm no expert,  but there must be places to read up on this sort of thing.  

 I live in a house from the Greek Revival era (1830's and '40's) in New York state,  and in working on it over the last 25 years I've learned mainly that the basic building practice was improvisation- people cobbling  together buildings with whatever they had to work with- which often didn't include much skill!  Around my area there were knowledgeable people who knew timber frame ("post and beam") construction and directed the construction of frames for barns and houses like mine, but after the frame was up,  what might look like a complex and interesting construction history is mostly nothing more than just marginally competent workmen making it up as they went along.   There were no building codes or code officers to inspect and ensure it was done any particular, proper way.  

By the way, I haven't noticed evidence in photos of much timber frame construction in Colorado, they seem to have gone from log buildings to balloon frame ("stick-built") construction without a major timber frame period in between- is that true?  

John Greenly