Interesting old wood floor

[Stan Calow]

I had the opportunity to tour behind the scenes at the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium. This is a beautiful still-used art deco facility built in the 1930s. Home to decades of college and pro basketball games( Big 8, NAIA, NCAA, Final Fours), ice skating shows, rock concerts, many graduations, and just about anything big until bigger more modern options were built.

The original sub-floor of the arena is what caught my eye. It's made of end-grain 2x4s (actual, not nominal) about 2 feet long on end. Its stood up to everything including annual B&B circuses (with elephants) for years. I am guessing it's douglas fir, but just a guess.
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[Doug Garson]

Looks like a butcher block on steroids. Could be Doug Fir, I have some from an old barn floor and the colours are similar.

[Lee Schierer]

Those types of floors were quite common in machine shops in western PA. The floor in the Channellock machining area is made up of 4" x 4" (actual size) wood blocks on end. They hold up well to metal chips and machining oils.

[Roger Feeley]

That building was built while Tom Pendergast was political boss. That’s why the exterior of the building is Redi-mix concrete. There might be a few bodies under that floor.

Funny story.
Larry Moore was the anchor on channel 9 in KC for many years. He lived in an old house just off Ward Parkway that was once owned by Boss Tom Pendergast. Moore wanted to put in a media room in the cellar but it lacked headroom. So he brings in a contractor to see about removing the cellar floor, digging it down and pouring a new floor. So the contractor gets out his hammer drill to see how much floor there is. His 12” bit bottomed out so he gets a longer bit and it bottoms out. The contractor gave up at 3’ of concrete and still not hitting dirt. At that point the contractor rejected the job on two grounds:
1. While Moore was quite well off, it would cost a fortune to jack hammer all that concrete.
2. Knowing the history of the house, he was a bit afraid of what he might find.
True story? Moore told it on the air, as I recall.

[Rob Luter]

Those types of floors were quite common in machine shops in western PA. The floor in the Channellock machining area is made up of 4" x 4" (actual size) wood blocks on end. They hold up well to metal chips and machining oils.

Common in Michigan too. Super durable. I was in an old abandoned Eaton plant in Kalamazoo with the same scenario. The 4 x 4 blocks were only about 6" long though. There was an area where the roof leaked and the floor swelled. The wood had no where to go but up. There was a "bubble" of sorts about 20 feet in diameter and a foot high.

[Dan Friedrichs]

What's under an end-grain floor like that? What supports it? (my brain is just struggling to understand how it 'works' compared to standard flat boards)

[Jerome Stanek]

What's under an end-grain floor like that? What supports it? (my brain is just struggling to understand how it 'works' compared to standard flat boards)

Picker xray and balder elecrtic have the 4x8 wood blocks for their florring and they are set just like a brick road i had to remve some to put a fotter for one of their peices of machinery

[Steve Demuth]

Could be, but it's awfully big growth rings for Douglas Fir from that era. I'd say it's more likely second growth or early plantation grown Southern Yellow Pine.

[Stan Calow]

What's under an end-grain floor like that? What supports it? (my brain is just struggling to understand how it 'works' compared to standard flat boards)

Dan, yeah me too. I didnt get to ask or see what supports the floor, but I can tell you that there is a "sub-arena" space under the floor that is big enough to drive and park multiple semi-trailers in. So it must be pretty substantial support as it's not ground level.

[Rob Luter]

What's under an end-grain floor like that? What supports it? (my brain is just struggling to understand how it 'works' compared to standard flat boards)

In the Michigan example I cited above, it was concrete. The wood was used as a sacrificial floor covering that could be easily serviced in the event of damage. It was all about the utility aspect. It was impact resistant, didn't chip, was easy on forklift tires, was easy to roll machinery across, soaked up oils, was repairable, etc.

[Jerome Stanek]

In the Michigan example I cited above, it was concrete. The wood was used as a sacrificial floor covering that could be easily serviced in the event of damage. It was all about the utility aspect. It was impact resistant, didn't chip, was easy on forklift tires, was easy to roll machinery across, soaked up oils, was repairable, etc.

Also easier on the feet and if you drop a sharp tool it isn't damaged

[Bill Dufour]

Seems odd for the blocks to be so long. I do not think it adds strength.
Bill D

[Brian Elfert]

I was in a building once that had been a factory in the old days. It had a wood floor like this that was strong enough to handle forklift traffic.

[Stan Calow]

Bill, the only reason I can think of is that maybe it provides resistance to splitting or individual pieces from rotating under eccentric loads.

[John M Wilson]

I was in a building once that had been a factory in the old days. It had a wood floor like this that was strong enough to handle forklift traffic.

I worked in a factory that had the wood floors - The original Cadillac plant, which we called "Clark Street" or Plant 1. The oldest part of the factory was built in 1919 (with many additions pre- and post-war, obviously) but the older parts all had the end grain wood floor blocks. We called them "Belgian Blocks", but I don't know why. This part of the factory was 4 or 5 storeys tall, with very large concrete columns supporting a concrete floor. The blocks were installed on top of the concrete, and were about 6" in every dimension, if my memory serves me right.

They would indeed support a fully loaded fork lift. They were often so saturated with hydraulic fluid and the various other machining oils that had been used (and spilled) over the decades that they very much resembled an asphalt paved surface. They were more comfortable to walk and stand on than the concrete floors used in the more modern parts of the plant.

One of the things that they couldn't stand up to was water -- if we ever had a rain leak, or a burst pipe, that part of the floor that got wet would expand and create a giant hump in the floor. The skilled tradesmen would have to come in and replace the swollen blocks with new ones, which looked terrific for about a week.

It was an amazing "throw-back" kind of technology, but I imagine it was very expensive to install and repair.