COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Adam Conway, a 1995 OSU alumnus, and Vice President of the Ohio Forestry Association, is a third generation lumberman. He recognized the quality—consistency and texture—of a white oak tree, after seeing one cut down by a Licking County farmer, following a damaging ice storm in December 2004.
After consulting with an architect in 2006, Conway helped choose and oversee the harvest of more than 60,000 board feet of white oak logs, which were used in the $108.7 million renovation of the Thompson Library. The panels and solids that line the hallways and corridors are made from white oak upwards of 200 years old.
Conway’s grandfather was a forester in the Zaleski State Forest, in the southeastern part of the state, in the 1940s, where much of the wood for the library renovation came from. Getting wood from the forest to a finished product required many Ohio businesses to complete the processes.
The Thompson Library at Ohio State is currently featuring in an exhibit, “Building Ohio State: From Forest to Renovation of the Thompson Library,” that runs through May 14, which highlights the history of forestry in Ohio.
When early American settlers arrived at Marietta in 1788, about 95 percent of the Northwest Territory that became Ohio was cloaked in forest. Logging, construction and agricultural clearing had reduced the forest to 10 percent. In the past half-century, timber management and conservation of the state’s natural resources and have brought back trees and woodland that now comprise nearly a third of the landscape.
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