Creosote Council Blog
How Rail Saturation Helped Launch Union Stock Yards and the American Meatpacking Industry
Nineteenth-century population growth, westward expansion, and city development depended on full stomachs, courtesy of meatpackers and farm produce. And none of that would have happened without thousands of miles of new railroad tracks and the wood crossties that supported them. More Land and More Trade, Brought to You by Treated Crossties The United States more than doubled in size in the first half of the 19th century. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and lands won in the...
1869: The Year a Golden Spike Kicked Off a Golden Era of Railroad Construction
The 1860s were a pivotal point not only in the development of the railroad system in the United States, but also in the creation of a modern economy from coast to coast. In the wake of the Civil War, “Reconstruction” occupied the time and attention of much of the country—an era that officially ended in 1877. But the construction of transcontinental railroads fueled innovation in creosote treatment so that tracks could last decades and national forests would not be depleted. Creosote-treated...
How Desert-Proofed Crossties Shaped the United States’ Southern Border and its Future
The 19th century was a complex era for the United States, rife with both destruction and construction. By the turn of the 20th century, the country was unrecognizable from its beginnings; it had more than tripled in area, endured four major wars, outlawed slavery, and increased its population fifteen-fold. (1) Creosote wood preservative played a pivotal role in this growth and, surprisingly, in the expansion of the country’s Southwest border. The first patents for creosote’s development and...
How American Coal Laid the Ground-Work for the Industrial Revolution
The Antebellum Era: A Time of Inferior Materials As the American railroad network was first being laid in the first half of the 19th century, it posed safety risks symptomatic of any new technology. U.S. President Franklin Pierce’s personal tragedy on January 6, 1853, epitomizes the dangerous nature of the era’s train travel. Just months after his election to the presidency, while traveling from Massachusetts back home to Concord, NH, the iron axle on his family’s rail car broke when it hit...
How Treated Trestles Built the American Rollercoaster
A trestle is the simplest type of three-dimensional construction, but build hundreds—or even thousands—of trestles and you have a trestle structure, a series of repeating triangles that can be shaped into most anything. Like a piece in a child’s set of building blocks, the humble trestle can transform into all types of structures, including bridges. Trestles comprised of untreated wood were originally employed as more temporary structures. But with the advent of creosote treatment...