Vertical Plank Box House

Well, the foundation workers are back at it!  Thank goodness.  Progress is progress when your list of to-do's is so long!

As I have said all along on this journey we keep uncovering stories.  The latest is whether or not this is a box house or a vertical plank house which can be one in the same.  Years ago as a child I can recall my grandmother talking about people ordering their houses from Sears, Roebuck, and Co.  The thought today of ordering all the materials from a "department store" and having it shipped to you seems like a very odd concept.  But, that is exactly what people did back in the early 1900's.  

From what I have read the only catch is that you had to be close to a railroad so that your house could be delivered.  Well, guess what.  Talpa was a Santa Fe switching station so there is a railroad that runs right through town.  It is very likely that this house was ordered from Sears and delivered via the Santa Fe railroad less than two blocks over and across the highway.  

Here is a picture of a Texas boxhouse.

From wikipedia:

Box houses (boxed house, box frame, box and strip, piano box, single-wall, board and batten, and many other names) have minimal framing in the corners and widely spaced in the exterior walls, but like the vertical plank wall houses, the vertical boards are structural.  The origins of boxed construction is unknown.  The term box-frame was used in a reconstruction manual in 1868 after the American Civil War.

The most common type of box house plank construction are those that the walls are truly build entirely of the boards that most picture when discussin the planks.  These planks are typically 1-1/4 to 2 inches thick and extend from the foundation to the roof.  This type of house, most commonly built between the 1870's to 1910's was known as a plank house, box house, or battened box house.

So what does this mean for the Martin House----we think we have uncovered boards that mean it is a box vertical plank house.  As the workers have had to replace some of the big beams under the house they have removed some of the siding and here is what was uncovered.

You can see the brown boards are about 8 inches wide and from what we can tell go vertically to the roof.  Thus we are making the assumption this is a vertical plank box house. 

As my husband inspected the inside walls while the house was being jacked up, he took a closer look as the walls would crack under the pressure.  He noticed that there is no insulation or 2x4's anywhere in the walls.  The vertical planks were basically the only thing that stood between the elements and the people living in these houses.  As cold natured as I am, I shuddered at that thought!

 

I will post more pictures in the next day or so.