Historic Contexts Study and Phase II Inventory (Downtown Elk River) 2022

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Exhibit Station: 15 Topic: Folk Construction Techniques in Sherburne County Story: Plank Construction Some sort of frame provides structural support for most houses built of wood. The Fox House is the only known example in Minnesota of a construction technique known as "plank" construction. In most plank construction, there is no frame, and vertical planks provide the structural support. The term "plank" construction may have been used for the first time in 1639 in Salem Massachusetts. Construction specifications for the Salem church called for it to be "covered with 1 '/2 plank with board upon that to meet close." (As quoted in John Rempel, Building with Wood, and Other Aspects of Nineteenth -Century Building in Central Canada, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, first edition, 1967, revised edition 1980, 174.) Plank construction became popular in northeastern United States and in Canada, where it was especially common in Quebec. The style was popularized in architectural pattern books as late as 1887, when it was recommended for a three-room settler's cottage. The technique was generally inexpensive and was used for tenant and farm homes in the South and West, and as late as the 1940s, when it was used for temporary World War II structures. (Stephen B. Jordan, "Houses Without Frames," Old House Journal, May -June 1993, 38; John Rempel, Building with Wood, and Other Aspects of Nineteenth -Century Building in Central Canada, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, first edition, 1967, revised edition 1980, 174) There were several different approaches to building plank homes. The earliest plank structures started with a post and beam timber frame to which vertical planks were added to create the walls. In these structures the large corner posts and beams bore the weight of the roof. A later version of the plank house, which is now considered the true form of the plank house, had wider planks and no vertical posts. The post -and -beam framing was eliminated, and the vertical planks became load bearing, supporting the weight of the roof. (John Rempel, Building with Wood, and Other Aspects of Nineteenth -Century Building in Central Canada, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, first edition, 1967, revised edition 1980, 175) Depending on skill and resources, different builders took different approaches to building load -bearing plank structures. The most skillful plank homebuilders grooved the sill and fashioned a tenon on the ends of the vertical planks. The planks were slipped into the groove and plank was butted against plank for a solid wall. Sometimes wooden pegs driven through the sill and planks secured the planks in place. A second approach, almost as skilled, was to cut a rabbet, or an L-shaped cut, on the edge of the sill timber. The end of the plank was slid onto the ledge created by the rabbet and nailed or pegged in place. In both of these approaches, the plank was held securely top and bottom, and the entire load of the structure sat on the sill timber. Sherburne County Historical Society Heritage Center Interpretive Plan, April 21, 2005, page 97