This walnut came down on Wabansia Ave

A sixty year old tree, down in one night

In the spring of 2024 a storm came through Bucktown and split a black walnut that had stood on Wabansia Ave for the better part of sixty years. It had shaded a stretch of sidewalk, dropped nuts every fall, and outlived more than one set of neighbors. By morning it was leaning into the parkway and the city marked it for removal.

Most of the time, that is the end of the story. A removal crew chips the branches, cuts the trunk into rounds, and the rounds go to a dump or a burn pile. A tree that took six decades to grow becomes mulch in an afternoon.

We catch what we can before the chipper does

We got the call because we make a habit of it. When a tree like this comes down, we ask to take the trunk before it gets chipped. The crew was glad to hand it off. We hauled the log back to the shop, cut it into slabs on the mill, and stickered them to dry.

This is what we mean by urban salvaged wood. It is hardwood milled from a city tree that came down anyway, instead of a tree logged from a forest. The walnut on Wabansia would have been waste. Instead it became lot PW-0421.

How a slab gets its record

Every piece we keep gets a record, and that record never leaves it. For this walnut:

Species: black walnut Source: Wabansia Ave, Bucktown, Chicago Reason it came down: storm damage, spring 2024 Milled and dried: kiln dried to 7 percent moisture That 7 percent matters. Interior furniture and millwork wood needs to sit around 6 to 9 percent so it stays stable indoors and does not move on you after it is built. We publish the exact number so you are never guessing.

One tree, three things

From this single trunk we got a long, wide slab and a stack of board stock. The slab is listed as lot PW-0421, ready for a dining table. The board stock became the June "WALNUT" drop, twenty four end grain and edge grain boards cut from the same tree. Same grain, same story, slightly different in every piece.

That is the whole idea behind the shop. One tree, followed all the way home. A slab you build with, a board you hand down, and the record that proves where it came from.

When this walnut sells through, the tree is gone with it. That is how it should be. It got to be a sidewalk tree for sixty years, and now it gets to be something somebody keeps.