The Joinery Co. Reclaims the Largest Wood Framed Building in the World
In the summer of 1994, The Joinery Company successfully negotiated the purchase of all reclaimed heart pine timbers and planking from the world’s largest and most famous wood framed buildings–the Sears & Roebuck Complex in Chicago, Illinois.
The Sears & Roebuck complex was begun by Richard W. Sears in 1905 and completed in 1906. With 5 million square feet of floor space, spanning two city blocks, it served as workspace for more than 9,000 employees in 1906. At that time, it was the world’s largest commercial building and a fitting home for what would later become the “World’s Largest Store”. In 1906, its employees filled orders for nearly 5 million customers. At its height, there were 22,000 employees working there. One can only imagine the number of customers that Sears served during that period. During the early part of the twentieth century, the Sears, Roebuck & Company facility was reputed to be the largest post and beam building ever built anywhere in the world.
When the last truckload of Reclaimed Heart Pine had been shipped to our factory in Tarboro, North Carolina and processed, over 12,000,000 board feet of timbers and planks had been salvaged and recycled into wide plank flooring, millwork, cabinets, and fine furniture.
Under The Joinery Company’s brand, “The Beauty of Recycling”, these unique products were delivered to famous addresses worldwide. The incredible quality of the Reclaimed Heart Pine from the Sears, Roebuck and Company complex exemplified the finest Longleaf Pine that America’s Virgin Forests had to offer. The Joinery`s reclamation and recycling of the Sears & Roebuck Complex was the largest reclamation project in the world. This beautiful wood, as well as the building itself, were uniquely American in every way and will long be remembered in The Reclaimed Wood Industry as the standard by which both reclamation and Reclaimed Heart Pine Flooring are measured.