All of Canal Street Cutlery's knives are available right now in smooth grained classic American Chestnut Wood which is not only beautiful but tells a great story of an American tragedy.

The American Chestnut had been the dominant species of tree along the Applachian Trail and highlands from Maine to Georgia at one time. A blight caused by a fungus on Asian nusery stock that was imported to America ravaged the species in the early 1900's wiping it out. By 1940 three and a half billion American Chestnut trees had perished. It was used for building structures across the eastern seaboard extensively during that time period. One such structure was the Hoover Barn pictured below.

The Hoover's were an Amish family who had moved to Hopkinsville from Lancaster, PA in the 1950's. Their barn was a traditionally framed 20' x 42' two story tobacco barn with two 14' side shelters located just outside of Hopkinsville, and was built in the 1920's, serving as a tobacco barn until the late 1970's when it was deemed too dangerous to use due to its deteriorating condition. Most of the framing was Chestnut while the siding was a combination of Oak and Chestnut.

The Canal Street hoard of stabilized American Chestnut Wood makes for the one of best storied Classic Americana knife handles ever produced. There are only limited amounts of what came out of the Hoover Barn. Much of it ended up in the hands of Kabar and the NRA. A single knife made it's way to Scott Rauber of pocketknivesblog.com, who published an adjectival tirade that puts any of our copy to shame.

Rauber described his feelings about his first view of the American Chestnut handle as "Part of me soooooooooooooooooooooo wanted to knurse, conserve, preserve, and collect this knife. But I overcame that desire," he used it to cut oranges, paper, cigar ends, and whittle in a matter of minutes rating it a stunning 97 points, one point off the highest rating that he generally gives out.

If you go to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, it won't take long to figure out that the locals still prefer their farms as a means of putting bread on their tables. The town is surrounded by a patchwork of farmland and old farms like the one pictured below. This is where Wally Gardiner discovered the Hoover's old Tobacco Barn with it's wealth of beautifully grained Chestnut Wood before he had it carefully taken down.

Wally Gardiner hired a gang with crowbars and handsaws to go to Hopkinsville to deconstruct the Hoover Barn and save all of its 100 year old American Chestnut Wood. No one had ever before even contemplated putting American Chestnut Wood on a knife, and the old timers sat back and watched, bringing their lunch boxes with plenty of homemade sammiches and iced tea with them.

The old guys just shook their heads as they watched Wally sort through all this wormy old wood that nobody in the knife world thought was worth saving. But when they realized that Wally had dropped a bundle on a ton of this wood and was ready to spend more in the effort to salvage it, they were all distressed - all fairly certain that Wally had lost his marbles.

The 70 and 80 year old knife makers in his shop just shook their heads and laughed. The odds were long that even Wally Gardiner's resolve would be sufficient to turn the wormy barnwood into something usable. Then again, as the septenarians and octagenarians had all known Wally from the time he started in the knife business, very few were betting against him.

The following Spring, Wally hadn't just bought some old useless wood to preserve, he was making smooth grained classic American knives whose handles were not only beautiful but told a great story with his haul of American Chestnut Wood, and folks in the industry who saw it on knives had to have it.

The 2012 versions of Canal Street's American Chestnut Collection are showing an electrifying improvement in the wood pieces being selected and the grainy beauty of this limited batch of American Chestnut Wood. Even the most grizzled of those old timers will will now tell you that this wood makes extraordinary knife handles.

The NRA certainly thought so - they used it for their knife of the year in 2012. Kabar thought so - they brought half of Wally Gardiner's stock and made Doghead knives with it. We secured the early bird inventory committing to them before they were even on knife handles in the shop and have most of Canal Street's knife line in American Chestnut. They will not be around forever folks. If you haven't gotten one yet - you should make the move. These knives are destined for true classic Americana.