Balloon construction fast but deadly

The first settlers in this area built rough log cabins, but as soon as sawmills and railroads made lumber available, they quickly switched to wood-frame houses.

One of the fastest ways to build a two-story farmhouse was balloon framing, yet a small fire in the basement or on the first floor could race up the walls and destroy the entire house in a frighteningly short time.

The first white settlers in what became Livingston County were Valentine and Rachel Darnall, who arrived in 1830 and built a log cabin along Indian Creek south of present-day Fairbury. Those early cabins kept out the rain, but they were drafty and uncomfortable. Settlers stuffed the gaps between logs with mud, clay, straw, or whatever they could find; this "chinking" often fell out, letting in cold wind and snow.

A better kind of house had to wait for sawmills. The first clearly identified mill in the county went up in Pontiac in 1838 on the Vermilion River, using water power to saw lumber. Hauling enough boards by wagon from Pontiac to build a house near Fairbury, however, would have been slow and expensive.

That changed when steam-powered mills and railroads arrived. Around 1854 the McDowell family built a steam sawmill at Avoca, about five miles north of Fairbury, which gave local farmers a much closer source of lumber. In 1857 the Peoria & Oquawka Railroad built its line through what would become Fairbury, and trainloads of lumber could suddenly be shipped into town. By the late 1850s, it was practical for settlers here to think in terms of wood-frame homes instead of log cabins.

Today, most two-story houses are built with what carpenters call "platform framing." Builders put up the first-story walls, lay floor joists on top of those walls, and then nail down a solid floor for the second story. The second-story walls are built on that floor platform, and the roof goes on top of it. Each story is basically its own box stacked on the one below it.

Where the first and second stories meet, the floor framing blocks the wall cavities. If a fire starts on the first floor, those breaks in the wall help slow the flames and smoke from racing straight up to the attic.

Back in the mid-1800s, builders in our area found a faster way. In "balloon framing," the wall studs run all the way from the foundation up past the second-story floor to the roof. Instead of being 8 or 9 feet long, many of these studs were 16 to 20 feet long or more.

Carpenters would stand these tall studs on the foundation, nail them at the top, and then attach the second-story floor joists to the sides of the studs. From the outside, the walls went up quickly, and the house took shape in a hurry.

On most of these houses, horizontal wood siding was nailed right to the tall studs. The wall cavities formed one continuous hollow space from the basement or crawl space all the way to the attic. In an era before insulation and house-wrap, outside air could move freely through those openings—making the homes drafty in winter and creating perfect hidden chimneys inside the walls.

That is where the "deadly" part of balloon construction comes in. If a fire started in the basement, crawl space, or first-floor kitchen, flames and hot gases could shoot up those open stud spaces like a stovepipe. Often the fire would reach the attic and roof long before anyone realized how far it had spread. Firefighters have long considered balloon-framed houses especially dangerous because the fire can travel unseen inside the walls.

From the 1850s through the late 1800s, balloon framing was the standard method for building two-story houses and many early frame commercial buildings in towns like Fairbury and Pontiac. Lumber was shipped in long lengths, and local carpenters liked how quickly they could frame a tall wall.

Around 1900, builders gradually began to favor platform framing. Some of this shift came from changes in lumber supplies—long, clear studs became more expensive—as well as from growing awareness of the fire hazards posed by continuous wall cavities. Between about 1900 and 1930, many new buildings were framed with a mix of the two methods, and remodels often produced hybrids: an original balloon-framed section with a platform-framed addition tacked on the back.

By about 1940, new houses built in the Fairbury area were almost all platform-framed. Building codes, standard lumber sizes, and fire departments' experience all pushed construction in that direction. Balloon framing lingered only in older homes and barns, many of which still stand today.

One well-known example of balloon framing close to Fairbury is the Strevell House in Pontiac. The two-story Carpenter Gothic home at 411 West Livingston Street was built around 1854 and likely used lumber from Pontiac’s early sawmills on the Vermilion River. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been carefully restored, preserving its original balloon-frame structure.

When you walk through a house like the Strevell, you are seeing the same type of framing that once stood behind the siding of many farmhouses and city homes around Fairbury. The method helped pioneers move quickly from drafty log cabins into taller, more comfortable houses—but it also meant that a single spark in the wrong place could spell disaster.

Although balloon construction was fast and economical for early builders, it left families with a hidden danger in their walls. By the time platform framing took over in the 20th century, most new houses in the Fairbury area were not only easier to insulate, but also far safer when fire struck.

(Dale Maley's local history article is sponsored each week by Dr. Charlene Aaron)