I'm currently mulling over a freelance writing project on surviving American roundhouses. As part of the early-hase research, I've been trying to determine when roundhouses first came into use in North America, and whether the concept was imported from England or whether it was indigenous to the US.

The oldest roundhouse listed in the NRHS database is the 1856 Aurora structure--a remarkably mature example of the design. How about earlier examples? Configuration and construction details? To keep the thread manageable, let's stick to antebellum examples.

eledbetter@rypn.org

Another early citation--same year as Aurora, 1856--is George Innes' famous landscape "Lackawanna Valley", which shows a B&O-style, full-roof, cast iron "tepee" style roundhouse in the background...

Other early examples?

eledbetter@rypn.org

Well, Erik, those beauties just up the road from you at Martinsburg, WV are just up the road from you.

As for a project, go for it. There should be a good book about the history of roundhouses, their use, design philosophy, decline and use/resuse/ destruction. I think I even know where the largest one in captivity is located ... (smile).

http://nctrans.org
Wrinnbo@aol.com

The Savannah roundhouse is probably older by 4 or 5 years, at least insofar as its design and conception as part of the entire site. I believe its construction to have been completed in 1855, although I was far too young at the time to remember much. Rudd may have better documentary information to quote chaper and verse.

William Wadley as the mastermind who toured the seminal railroad sites in Europe and the US and came home with a concrete idea of what a shops should be, designed and built his vision as an entirety. It was so fine a design that, apart from necessary enlargement and replacement of burned structures, all major functions structures occupies the same portion of the whole through the end of use in the 1970's.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

> Well, Erik, those beauties just up the road
> from you at Martinsburg, WV are just up the
> road from you.

No prize to the Matinsburg beauty (only one survives now), 'cause she's 1866. Old, but post-bellum.

eledbetter@rypn.org

> As for a project, go for it. There should be
> a good book about the history of
> roundhouses, their use, design philosophy,
> decline and use/resuse/ destruction. I think
> I even know where the largest one in
> captivity is located ... (smile).

Ad for that matter, woah, Jim, I was thinking an article, not a book, though surely there is a book here to be written...


eledbetter@rypn.org

I *believe* the Historic American Engineering Report mentions 1853, the National Historic Landmarks web page states 1860, which I'm pretty sure is wrong. Only kicker is, most of the antebellum roundhouse itself is gone, save for portions of the back wall that got incorporated into other structures. 11 antebellum structures remain. As Dave metions, the beauty of the place is the integraterd nature of the buildings, the complex is laid out like a factory - the blacksmith shop feeds into the machine shop, which in turn feeds into the roundhouse for example. Makes sense, as the original plan was to build the C of G's lokes there - three were built before it became cheaper to buy from the big makers, chiefly Baldwin. Also, it's kind of like the story about butchering the pig, everything got used but the squeal. Wood chips from the carpentry shop were used to feed the main boiler in the power house, rainwater from the roofs was used to flush out the privies, the large stack is not only stack for the blacksmith shop and the powerhouse and the tin/copper shop, but also incorporated the water tank, and privies. Wadley's genius allowed the place to remain in service with only minor modifications until the end of steam. Compare this to say, Altoona, where roundhouses were replaced with some frequency.

We do know that Wadley came over from Scotland as a young man, working as a blacksmith's apprentice at Fort Pulaski in the 1830's-40's. If you've studied design of the Totten era forts, you can see he incorporated alot of good ideas from that construction into the shops.

We'll try to get a closer reading on the HAER report for a better date...

Rudd


rudd@cogdellmendrala.com

This is going to get hard to follow Erik, so stay close! The earliest examples we have of roundhouse in Port Huron, Michigan is an image of a Port Huron & Lake Michigan Roundhouse, circa 1867, on the north side of the Black River (it cuts through the middle of town), We show it as having been constructed circa 1852. The image is fairly clear, and you can make out details fairly well. The other roundhouse (we only have later shots of it) in what is now Port Huron was the village of Fort Gratiot roundhouse, which lay behind our 1858-built Fort Gratiot Depot. Fort Gratiot was later annexed by Port Huron.

Both of these came down sometime after the Port Huron & Northwestern Railway was built in 1878 (PH &LM Roundhouse) and when the St. Clair River Tunnel was built in 1891 (The Fort Gratiot village roundhouse). The Fort Gratiot cillage roundhouse was part of a large repair facility of the Chicago, Detroit & Canada Grand Trunk Junction. Both the PH&LM and C.D.&C.T.Jct. R.R.'s were predecessor to GT.

When the Port Huron & Northwestern was built in 1878 (predecessor to the Pere Marquette), they purchased much of the former PH&LM yards on the southside of the river. They built their own roundhouse however, which was torn down in 1926 for the new roundhouse on 16th street, which was torn down in 1978.

Grand Trunk built yet another roundhouse along the Chicago-Toronto Mainline, after the tunnel was built in 1891. This roundhouse came down sometime after steam ended in 1960, but have yet to pinpoint when.

One more to go: this was yet another roundhouse constructed by the Port Huron Southern, later Port Huron & Detroit, since 1984 CSX. The original was built around 1900, burned in 1922, and then was rebuilt as a concrete-block three-stall roundhouse in 1924. It is the last and only roundhouse standing in Port Huron today.

All in all, (yes, I know this is confusing), Port Huron had 6 roundhouses: Three of Grand Trunk Heritage, 2 of Pere Marquette Heritage, and 1 for shortline PH&D. PH&D is only one left standing: GTW turntable for 1891-Built rounshouse is till in place, however.

Confused yet?

T.J. Gaffney

> I'm currently mulling over a freelance
> writing project on surviving American
> roundhouses. As part of the early-hase
> research, I've been trying to determine when
> roundhouses first came into use in North
> America, and whether the concept was
> imported from England or whether it was
> indigenous to the US.

> The oldest roundhouse listed in the NRHS
> database is the 1856 Aurora structure--a
> remarkably mature example of the design. How
> about earlier examples? Configuration and
> construction details? To keep the thread
> manageable, let's stick to antebellum
> examples.


Port Huron, Michigan
tjgaffney@phmuseum.org

> This is going to get hard to follow Erik,
> so stay close! The earliest examples we have
> of roundhouse in Port Huron, Michigan is an
> image of a Port Huron & Lake Michigan
> Roundhouse, circa 1867, on the north side of
> the Black River (it cuts through the middle
> of town), We show it as having been
> constructed circa 1852. The image is fairly
> clear, and you can make out details fairly
> well.

Very good, T.J., you are pushing us back a few years earlier. Can you describe the major structural elements of the roundhouse in the 1867 image (constraction date ca. 1852)? Fully roofed or open over the turntable? Brick, or masonry? High roof or low? Any thoughts about the internal framing (cast iron? wood?).

See, no good deed goes unpunished. Tell me more!

A recap so far: we can safely say the roundhouse concept was fully evolved by the early 1850s. Representative structures from that decade include both "modern" low-roof, open-turntable designs (Savannah, Aurora) and "early" high-roof, covered turntable, iron-frame designs (Innes painting, probably Scranton).

Can we push it back to the 1840s? Even the 1830s?



eledbetter@rypn.org

My assumption is that the layout for a roundhouse originated from locating a single stall structure directly off a turntable. As equipment rosters became larger, the needed for additional "houses" or stalls increased thereby leading to the widely accepted roundhouse layout as cited by the Scranton and Savannah examples.

Months ago, someone posted that Ellicot City, Maryland once had a circa 1830's steam railroad turntable. Did this location have a "roundhouse" as well?

middlebrookk@kaisere.com

Ellicot
> City, Maryland once had a circa 1830's steam
> railroad turntable. Did this location have a
> "roundhouse" as well?

The Ellicott City station (actually Ellicott's Mills back then) was built with engine servicing and freight handling tracks entering two doors at the east end of the upper level of the station (it was a freight-only station when built; passengers were accomodated at the hotel/tavern across the street). Unclear if access to these two tracks was originally (that is, ca 1831) by turntable or by switches. By the late 1840s or early 1850s access was definately by turntable. So yes, an early turntable at Ellicot City, but otherwise the layout is more shed/enginehouse than roundhouse.

In general, you are surely right about one strand of evolution of roundhouses (multiple side-by-side single bay engine houses growing around a turntable). Of course, this becomes the dominant design.

But it is interesting to note than many of the earliest US roundhouse designs were complete-circle structures by design--buildings like Martinsurg or Mt Clare where the complete circle (or shape, since many are actually composed of multiple planes) is integral to the load-bearing framework. The could not have evolved in any but a conceptual sense from part-circle designs. I'm guessing here, but that strand of evolution may have arisen from certain kinds of industrial and frieght handling/warehousing buildings, where curcular or octagonal cupola construction was already in use--some mill and warehouse designs spring to mind.

eledbetter@rypn.org