Over the years, we have found some pretty interesting items under the old floorboards we repair. Some of those are the mills’ names stamped on the back of the material. It seems like in the old days, every little town had a lumberyard that manufactured their own flooring with their own name stamp on the back.
A few years back, we took up some material that had a stamp on it from a town that didn't even exist anymore. We have found old newspapers and old tins to cover up holes in the floor:
The newspaper shown here was the largest intact piece we found on a job where the entire floor was covered with newspaper as the underlayment; the date on this one is Nov. 27, 1938:
I have a collection of probably 30 to 40 different lumberyards/sawmills from many small towns in Illinois. I'm sure I can't be the only one that has collected these and pondered where these sawmills/flooring companies went:
[Editor’s Note: If you have photos of interesting objects you’ve found on jobs, please let us know.)
