Sustainable Retirement #7: The Wood Eternal
For countless ages before Frenchmen founded St. Louis, 250 years ago, thick, old-growth forests of bald cypress grew, not far to the South, in the vast swamps, wetlands and river bottoms of the Southeast Missouri Bootheel. Those pristine forests remained uncut until the late 1800's, when steam powered sawmills and railroads, wielded by Gilded Age tycoons, briefly
made Missouri into one of the largest timber sources in the country.
In 1869, historian and entrepreneur Louis Houck arrived in Cape Girardeau and traveled south through the Bootheel. Houck's reminiscences, published in the Southeast Missourian on May 15, 1969, included description of vast swamps "all covered with heavy timber."
Despite his appreciation for the natural beauty of the lowlands, Houck spent the next 30 years acquiring property, promoting development, investing in railroads and encouraging lumber companies to come to the region. The short rail lines he constructed in the 1880s and 1890s connected lowland forests with timber markets in Cape Girardeau and beyond. Because of his great success in railroad building, local newspapers called Houck the "Father of Southeast Missouri."
By the early 20th Century, Southeast Missouri timber mills were cutting from 12 to 15 million board feet of lumber annually; old growth cypress from the Bootheel was part of that along with other timber, also being clear-cut, in the nearby Ozarks. At this point, the sad history of old-growth Missouri cypress becomes intertwined with the story of the home in St. Louis that we are purchasing.
By the time our home-to-be was built in 1908, old-growth bald cypress had practically become a glut on the market in St. Louis, the closest big city to where the Bootheel timber was being clear-cut. The uniquely durable wood became used for almost anything.
Manufacturers used cypress wood for fence posts, coffins, docks, poles, railroad ties and boxes. Because of its water-resistance, builders used it for exterior siding. According to St. Louis architect Jack Luer, "In the early twentieth century, cypress also became popular for interior trim."
Thus does our home-to-be come into the story. A historic window restoration specialist says the windows look like cypress to him. He'll know for sure when the work is done. It may turn out that all or some of the windows, trim, doors and hardwood floors in the house are old-growth cypress (unsustainably harvested, alas), grown a short haul down the rail line, over 100 years ago.
For details of why this is such exciting news, step out into the tall grass.
Old-growth cypress was known for ages as The Wood Eternal, evoking an idea of sustainability in an age that didn't speak about sustainability.
The “Wood Eternal” is a nickname given to cypress because, like the cedar, cypress is naturally resistant to rot and insects. But unlike cedar, cyprus grows in fresh water. Cypress also contains a natural preservative called cypressene which prevents the growth of fungi that causes decay. Today, in relation to the history of ideas, the moniker “Wood Eternal” contains a cypressene-like meme that perpetuates and preserves the concept of the “Wood Eternal”. It’s not too much a stretch to assert that this meme has emerged into the modern version of that moniker: Sustainable.
While it is not indestructible, old-growth cypress is extremely durable. The windows in our home-to-be remain in serviceable and fully restorable condition over 100 years after they were built. When the specialist is done with them, with routine maintenance, they will last another 100 years and more.
Old-growth cypress woodwork is becoming irreplaceable. The only old-growth cypress available today is either recovered from buildings in neighborhoods built in the same era mine was built, or it is sinker cypress, logs that fell naturally or were left behind during the clear-cutting because they couldn't be rafted to market. The cypressene produced by the living tree preserves the dead tree from rot and decay, indefinitely.
Sinker Cypress is virgin Cypress wood from the original forest. It is common for sinker logs to have defects such that, when the sinker log is sawn, a fair percentage of the boards simply fall apart due to shake, a longitudinal separation of the wood caused by these ancient trees swaying in hurricane winds for many generations. Thus, the low recovery of solid usable wood from sinker logs makes the cost of sinker Cypress even higher.
In addition to used cypress lumber and lumber from sinkers, bald cypress is grown and harvested for market still today. It remains available by special order at considerable extra expense for all woodworking applications. But what appears to be some of the very best of that modern wood, with no more than 15 rings per inch, cannot match the quality and grain, strength, hardness or durability of old-growth cypress, characterized by 25 or more rings per inch. A
purveyor of excellent modern cypress says this:
Today, Cypress grows in abundance across the Gulf Coast and in hardwood bottomlands, and it is desired for its beauty and longevity. Though none of the second growth Cypress can be called the "wood eternal" like its virgin predecessor,
We did not offer to purchase our home-to-be because it had old-growth cypress woodwork, though we did see that there was something special in these windows that demanded preservation. But this discovery goes a long way to help harmonize our two main, sometimes conflicting goals, of sustainability and historic preservation. Restoring these windows will probably not make them measure all the way up to the efficiency claims made for top-line modern replacement windows. But, historic windows make up for any such deficiency, many times over, with their
embodied energy, coming from being made from locally grown trees, of uniquely durable wood, manufactured locally, if not on site.
Sustainability is also a forward-looking idea. Restored and routinely maintained historic wooden windows will easily last another 100 years, even if made of lesser woods than old-growth cypress. Modern manufactured windows have a unitary design which usually cannot be repaired if a single component fails, unlike the old fashioned windows. No modern manufactured window carries a warranty longer than 30 years.
What an incredible bit of extra history to serendipitously stumble upon so early in our historic preservation and sustainable rehab project! Thank you Clio.