Originating in 1832 in Chicago with a balloon-framed warehouse designed by George Washington Snow, timber framing - also known at the time as 'Chicago construction' - introduced softwood construction to the world. The easy availability of the principal material, its simplicity of construction, an ability to be erected by low or unskilled workers, and the growing economies and populations of the American Midwest proliferated an architecture that has since dominated the American built landscape and erased typological and class distinctions of architectural production.