Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

LANSING TowNsIIL 1 AND CITY. WITII HISTORY

5'09

The doctor's love of poetry and history and a talent for drawing
he has passed on to his children. The son, Thomas M. Marshall,
Ph.D., is at the head of the history department in the University
of Washington at St. Louis, and is the author of several volumes of
history. The daughter is in the art department of the Berkeley
high School, Berkeley, Calif.-State Journal.
WTALNUT FINISHINGS AT CAPITOL NOW REPRESENT
VALUE OF $60,000.
And now, people of Michigan, after nearly 50 years, what will
you take for the inside woodwork of your Capitol?
How about that black walnut finishing upstairs and downstairs
and in the governor's chambers, not to mention the fittings where
the supreme court holds forth, the 100 desks in representative hall,
32 similar desks in the senate chamber, and all the other fittings
of the hard, dark wood once so characteristic of the State?
It may be that you, the people, have been losing money on too
many executive boards, but, look!-here are some other old boards
worth while.
Conservative estimate puts the number of board feet necessary
to replace the present black walnut finishing at 200,000 board feet.
Black walnut is not carried in stock these days, but it can be had
at between $200 and $300 a thousand board feet. This means
that to replace the black walnut in the Capitol would cost the tidy
sum of $40,000 at the lowest figure. To work up this lumber
into a duplicate of the Capitol finishings would probably cost at
conservative estimate $50 a thousand, so here is to be added another $10,000. After being completed at the mill it is estimated
the work of putting the finishings in place in the building would
cost on the basis of another $50 a thousand, and so there would be
another $10,000 to add. Iere then is a total of $60,000 for the
interior woodwork on three floors of the Capitol.
But the old wood involved is held as more precious than its
worth in dollars and cents. It is emblematic of the day in which
the Capitol was built. Black walnut was a highly esteemed wood
then, but more plentiful and less costly than hard pine of today.