Interesting old wood floor

[Stan Calow]

I had the opportunity to tour behind the scenes at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium. This is a beautiful still-used art deco facility built in the 1930s. Home to decades of college and pro basketball games( Big 8, NAIA, NCAA, Final Fours), ice skating shows, rock concerts, many graduations, and just about anything big until bigger more modern options were built.

The original sub-floor of the arena is what caught my eye. It's made of end-grain 2x4s (actual, not nominal) about 2 feet long on end. Its stood up to everything including annual B&B circuses (with elephants) for years. I am guessing it's douglas fir, but just a guess.
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[Doug Garson]

Looks like a butcher block on steroids. Could be Doug Fir, I have some from an old barn floor and the colours are similar.

[Lee Schierer]

Those types of floors were quite common in machine shops in western PA. The floor in the Channellock machining area is made up of 4" x 4" (actual size) wood blocks on end. They hold up well to metal chips and machining oils.

[Roger Feeley]

That building was built while Tom Pendergast was political boss. That’s why the exterior of the building is Redi-mix concrete. There might be a few bodies under that floor.

Funny story.
Larry Moore was the anchor on channel 9 in KC for many years. He lived in an old house just off Ward Parkway that was once owned by Boss Tom Pendergast. Moore wanted to put in a media room in the cellar but it lacked headroom. So he brings in a contractor to see about removing the cellar floor, digging it down and pouring a new floor. So the contractor gets out his hammer drill to see how much floor there is. His 12” bit bottomed out so he gets a longer bit and it bottoms out. The contractor gave up at 3’ of concrete and still not hitting dirt. At that point the contractor rejected the job on two grounds:
1. While Moore was quite well off, it would cost a fortune to jack hammer all that concrete.
2. Knowing the history of the house, he was a bit afraid of what he might find.
True story? Moore told it on the air, as I recall.

[Rob Luter]

Those types of floors were quite common in machine shops in western PA. The floor in the Channellock machining area is made up of 4" x 4" (actual size) wood blocks on end. They hold up well to metal chips and machining oils.

Common in Michigan too. Super durable. I was in an old abandoned Eaton plant in Kalamazoo with the same scenario. The 4 x 4 blocks were only about 6" long though. There was an area where the roof leaked and the floor swelled. The wood had no where to go but up. There was a "bubble" of sorts about 20 feet in diameter and a foot high.

[Dan Friedrichs]

What's under an end-grain floor like that? What supports it? (my brain is just struggling to understand how it 'works' compared to standard flat boards)

[Jerome Stanek]

What's under an end-grain floor like that? What supports it? (my brain is just struggling to understand how it 'works' compared to standard flat boards)

Picker xray and balder elecrtic have the 4x8 wood blocks for their florring and they are set just like a brick road i had to remve some to put a fotter for one of their peices of machinery

[Steve Demuth]

Could be, but it's awfully big growth rings for Douglas Fir from that era. I'd say it's more likely second growth or early plantation grown Southern Yellow Pine.

[Stan Calow]

What's under an end-grain floor like that? What supports it? (my brain is just struggling to understand how it 'works' compared to standard flat boards)
Dan, yeah me too. I didnt get to ask or see what supports the floor, but I can tell you that there is a "sub-arena" space under the floor that is big enough to drive and park multiple semi-trailers in. So it must be pretty substantial support as it's not ground level.

[Rob Luter]

What's under an end-grain floor like that? What supports it? (my brain is just struggling to understand how it 'works' compared to standard flat boards)

In the Michigan example I cited above, it was concrete. The wood was used as a sacrificial floor covering that could be easily serviced in the event of damage. It was all about the utility aspect. It was impact resistant, didn't chip, was easy on forklift tires, was easy to roll machinery across, soaked up oils, was repairable, etc.

[Jerome Stanek]

In the Michigan example I cited above, it was concrete. The wood was used as a sacrificial floor covering that could be easily serviced in the event of damage. It was all about the utility aspect. It was impact resistant, didn't chip, was easy on forklift tires, was easy to roll machinery across, soaked up oils, was repairable, etc.

Also easier on the feet and if you drop a sharp tool it isn't damaged

[Bill Dufour]

Seems odd for the blocks to be so long. I do not think it adds strength.
Bill D

[Brian Elfert]

I was in a building once that had been a factory in the old days. It had a wood floor like this that was strong enough to handle forklift traffic.

[Stan Calow]

Bill, the only reason I can think of is that maybe it provides resistance to splitting or individual pieces from rotating under eccentric loads.

[John M Wilson]

I was in a building once that had been a factory in the old days. It had a wood floor like this that was strong enough to handle forklift traffic.

I worked in a factory that had the wood floors - The original Cadillac plant, which we called "Clark Street" or Plant 1. The oldest part of the factory was built in 1919 (with many additions pre- and post-war, obviously) but the older parts all had the end grain wood floor blocks. We called them "Belgian Blocks", but I don't know why. This part of the factory was 4 or 5 storeys tall, with very large concrete columns supporting a concrete floor. The blocks were installed on top of the concrete, and were about 6" in every dimension, if my memory serves me right.

They would indeed support a fully loaded fork lift. They were often so saturated with hydraulic fluid and the various other machining oils that had been used (and spilled) over the decades that they very much resembled an asphalt paved surface. They were more comfortable to walk and stand on than the concrete floors used in the more modern parts of the plant.

One of the things that they couldn't stand up to was water -- if we ever had a rain leak, or a burst pipe, that part of the floor that got wet would expand and create a giant hump in the floor. The skilled tradesmen would have to come in and replace the swollen blocks with new ones, which looked terrific for about a week. :)

It was an amazing "throw-back" kind of technology, but I imagine it was very expensive to install and repair.

[Andrew More]

They were also apparently used as cobble"stones" in some city streets. Could have sworn this was also done in Cincinnati Ohio, but I can't find a pick. Here's one from Philly.

https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/m5muzp/this_street_in_philly_is_paved_with_wood/

[Maurice Mcmurry]

My boss in the 1980s had a stack of this N.O.S, under a tarp in the back yard of his sisters house on Mission Hill in Jamaica Plain MA. The end grain blocks were screwed to 1 inch tongue & grove flooring. The blocks themselves were tongue and grove as well but the tongue was a separate strip of wood. Each assemblage was 3x3x48 inches.

I do not see any web images for the type described above but I found this site:

Industrial End Grain Wood Block Flooring - Jennison Wright Co. (https://jennisonwright.com/woodblock.html)

[Lee DeRaud]

I was in a building once that had been a factory in the old days. It had a wood floor like this that was strong enough to handle forklift traffic.
Forklift traffic? Pffft. There is (or was a couple decades back) a Lockheed-Martin facility in Great Neck, NY, that was built in WWII. Its floor was similar, but scaled up quite a bit. But they were assembling tanks there...dunno if it could handle an Abrams, but it certainly didn't have any problems with the tanks of that era.

[Jerome Stanek]

Forklift traffic? Pffft. There is (or was a couple decades back) a Lockheed-Martin facility in Great Neck, NY, that was built in WWII. Its floor was similar, but scaled up quite a bit. But they were assembling tanks there...dunno if it could handle an Abrams, but it certainly didn't have any problems with the tanks of that era.

An Abrams has less than 14 PSI fully loaded. A Sherman had about 13 psi if I remember correctly

[Tom Bender]

Have been around and worked on a number of those factory floors. It's surprising that they worked so well that they became common despite the cost and vulnerability to water damage. I guess they are more reliable when oily because that sealed them somewhat, but in abandoned areas they really went bad, with humps and failures everywhere. It was a sad sight.

Minor humps sometimes recovered and sometimes weight helped but other times replacement was necessary.

[Pat Germain]

Two anecdotes about wood decks in case anyone might be interested:

- In the early 1990s I worked with a guy from Boston. He told me the hardwood floors the old Boston Garden used for Celtics games were very worn in certain areas. Legend had it the Celtics players could use this to their advantage to bounce the ball in certain ways which the opposing team could not predict. (Not sure if it's true, but it's a good story.)

- In 1989 I was an active duty US Navy sailor. I was sent to USS Iowa for temporary duty. When I came aboard at the pier in Norfolk, there were a lot of contractors replacing part of the teak deck. For those who may be unaware, Iowa was built during WWII when the Navy still used teak decks. (On modern ships, the decks are painted steel or non-skid.) I think all the teak had been replaced when the ship was recommissioned in the early 1980s, but some of it was showing wear. The contractors had small band saws which they were using to custom fit new teak pieces into the deck.

Last September I visited the USS Iowa again. It is now a museum ship in San Pedro, CA. Unfortunately, the teak decking is looking pretty clapped out these days. Much of the deck is now covered in plywood. It's a shame. That teak deck was really cool. But I understand the Iowa museum is a non-profit and the cost of replacing teak decking must be astronomical these days.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

The quirky floor at the old Boston Garden was a real thing. Even some of the fans could recognize when a play was made using one of the dead spots. I think a token amount of the old floor is mixed in with the new floor at the Fleet Center AKA TD Garden. My brother in law can do very funny and accurate sports cast of many a game from the 1970s and 80s . Who was it that had the nick name "The Round Mound Of Rebound" Charles Barkley. Games against Philly always got the fans very wound up. Celtic fans are wound up to begin with. Our youngest sure has become one.

[Perry Hilbert Jr]

When I worked a summer at Hershey Cocoa back in the early 1970's, the machine shop floor, except for the pads the machines sat on, were some sort of end grain cobble arrangements. I read that in in mid 1800's to about 1910, many of the streets in Washington DC were of wooden cobbles. Only the wealthiest neighborhoods had stone cobbles. Imagine those hot humid summers and all that horse dung flowing down the streets in the thunder storms that happen every other day in August.

best floor I saw was a pegged plank floor. the planks were red oak and the pegs were black walnut. That was one real eyecatcher. The fellow that put in the floor cut and milled the lumber into planks, then had it kiln dried and milled to size and even bought a machine to make the walnut dowels. Said it took him almost two months to install it and another month of sanding and finishing.

[Pat Germain]

. I read that in in mid 1800's to about 1910, many of the streets in Washington DC were of wooden cobbles. Only the wealthiest neighborhoods had stone cobbles.

I lived in DC in the mid-1980s. Good thing the wooden cobbles were gone by then. Every night people would set fire to tires and parked cars. Can't imagine the carnage if wooden streets had caught fire. Back then driving through parts of DC were like being in a Mad Max movie. I would have to dodge open fire hydrants, burning tires and smoldering cars. This was only a few blocks away from the Smithsonian.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Most of the city's out east were a mess 40 & 50 years ago. I moved to the South End of Boston in 1981. It was very poor and very dangerous. Most of the houses were boarded up. You could buy one for $1 if you paid the back taxes. It has changed a lot. I sanded a lot of old floors for the few brave souls that were interested in urban renewal back then. They were not hardwood but could be made to look good with enough polyurethane. It would be fun to come across one of those end grain floors. I bet they would be hard on sandpaper if you tried to pretty one up.