Western balloon frame

"Balloon frame" expansion of the West (“Western balloon frame”)

The "Balloon Frame" is closely related to the conquest of the West, from Chicago to the Pacific coast. Contemporaries knew well, that if it wasn't for this construction, houses or on prairies, nor in the great cities would they appear with such incredible speed.

With the use of machines, work in building houses has become much easier, and there are plenty of houses on the western prairies, which were delivered there ready, with numbered parts. If the "balloon frame" were not known, Chicago and San Francisco would not have grown from small villages into big cities in just one year!

In the period of the expansion of the nineteenth-century West, contemporaries called the method of construction, known as the "balloon frame", the most important contribution to our residential architecture.

THE INVENTION OF THE "BALLOON FRAME"

Seems, that even in the 1850s and 1860s, it was uncertain about the circumstances of the invention of the 'balloon frame'. One of the witnesses of the time states, that it is not known exactly when it was first used, but in the last fifty years it has completely replaced the old method of construction.

Woodward w 1869 years he confesses, that the early history of the balloon frame is somewhat vague, because there are no genuine statements about its origin. However, its development could be related to the early settlement on the prairies, where it was difficult to find heavy wood and skilled craftsmen. Balloon frame is not the work of one person, no one admits to inventing it, and yet in the art of construction it is one of the most sensible improvements ever made. Nevertheless it seems, that "balloon
frame” it has an inventor and comes from one particular city.