In 1900, Southern Yellow Pine was what concrete blocks are today.
Twenty years ago they tore down an old cotton mill in Macon Georgia. The thing was timber framed with giant 16x16 yellow pine timbers.
They set up a sawmill in the corner of the plant, and they would cut you whatever kind of plank you wanted. Heart pine.
This mill had been built in 1880.
My buddy and I went over, he got some 2x4s and some 1x12s to build some stairs with.
I counted the growth rings in one of those beams, and it went back at least 220 years. These giant trees were growing a century before the American Revolution.
