I love to work with wood that has some history. I have a bit of walnut that was from a barn built prior to the civil war in Missouri, as well as some from a dairy barn out of Wisconsin which was built in the 1800's.
Last winter I got permission to hunt some property that has an old structure built from pine timbers that are about 6" thick x 18" wide and around 20 feet long. It is in pretty sad shape, although the timbers are still very solid. I asked the landowner about the building and found that it was a stage stop on the Butterfield Trail. It looks like I will be able to salvage some of the "add-on" wood that is not as stable, but it will only be good for using for wallcovering and such. The landowner hopes to have a local historical society take on the restoration of the building...
A couple of weeks ago, the landowner asked if I would like to cut some firewood from a couple of large white oak trees that had fallen a few years ago. I had seen the downed trees, but paid no attention to them. I was using more firewood in the past couple of weeks, so I thought I would cut some of the wood just to get it out of their way (in a horse pasture close to their house trailer). I cut and split enough to put a couple of rows in the back of my Ranger pickup. I got to looking more closely at some of the wood on the remaining trunks.
![Shocked :o](http://184.171.243.18/~shannonk/Forum/Smileys/classic/shocked.gif)
There is some CRAZY curly grain at the base of one of the trees. Both trees are about 4 feet across at the base. The one with curly grain was hollow and was only about 6-8 inches thick (solid) around the trunk. I got to thinking about it, and realized that as large as these trees are, they had to be living at the time of the stage route.
![Cool 8)](http://184.171.243.18/~shannonk/Forum/Smileys/classic/cool.gif)
Oh, yeah. I just got myself into a nice supply of white oak with some history! I haven't salvaged any yet big enough for call pots. I did turn a neat little coffee scoop for the landowner out of a piece I cut on Saturday.
I'll be cutting some more soon and looking for larger pieces that I can hopefully get some call blanks out of. I have pieces large enough for crow, duck, deer grunts or owl hooters... but don't turn any of these anymore. It may end up as more coffee scoops and such. I thought about trying a local craft show with non-hunting related items... (Did I really just say that?)