The largest American flag in the country in 1913-well, technically the second largest-was sewn by the nimble fingers of the female workforce at Amoskeag Mills in Manchester, N.H. Now workers from Longleaf Lumber Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) are milling the wooden beams and floorboards from Amoskeag Mill No. 12 Annex, built in 1891, and recycling the historic timbers into flooring.
"These woods are a part of textbook American history," said Longleaf owner Marc Poirier in a statement. "Thousands of American immigrant families got their start working on these boards and beams, and in 1909 Lewis Hine photographed workers here."
The wood is heart pine originally cut from old-growth southern longleaf pine trees and shipped north for industrial building during the American Industrial Revolution.
"It doesn't get more historic than this," Poirier said.
Editor: A previous version of this article named the company Longleaf Lumber Mills. The company's name is Longleaf Lumber Inc. The article also said the company was in the process of salvaging the wood, but Longleaf Lumber Inc. finished salvaging and is now milling.
