As winter came on, attics were often stacked to the rafters with flour bags full of the glossy, dark brown nuts. Spring houses and smokehouses were hung with hams and other products from livestock that had fattened on the harvest gleanings. And what wasn't consumed was sold. The tree was also one of the best for timber. It grew straight and often branch-free for up to fifty feet.
Loggers tell of loading entire railroad cars with boards cut from just one tree.
Straight-grained, lighter in weight than oak and more easily worked, chestnut was as rot resistant as redwood. It was used for virtually everything - telegraph poles. Railroad ties, paneling, fine furniture, musical instruments, even pulp and plywood. Then the chestnut blight struck. In its wake it left only dead and dying stems.