Monadnock Moment No. 189

Era 4: Expansion and Reform - 1800 to 1860

George Washington Snow and the Balloon Frame

George Washington Snow was born in Keene, New Hampshire in September of 1797. He left home as a young man and went to New York where he found work as a carpenter and surveyor. He married while in New York and moved with his wife to Detroit.

In 1832 they moved further west to Chicago, a town of 250 residents. The next year Chicago became a city and Snow was made the first city assessor and surveyor. It was also during that year that Snow constructed a building which was to change the nature of house construction in America. That building was St. Mary's Church, the first building in America to be built with a balloon frame. The balloon frame involved the use of thin plates and studs running the entire height of the building and held together only by nails. Houses had previously been built with huge timbers held together with mortise and tenon joints.

Old time carpenters laughed at the new style of construction. They said that the new frame was too weak and would collapse. They degraded the construction by calling it the balloon frame. The balloon frame proved very strong, however, and within two years other carpenters were using it. By 1843 the balloon frame was being used all over the country. Two men could now accomplish what it had taken twenty men to do with the old fashioned frame. The balloon frame also cut the cost of construction by forty percent. Although he did not patent his invention, nor become wealthy from it, Keene native George Washington Snow revolutionized America's home construction industry.