The Quonsets Fall

We've made it through to glorious spring time, but oh it was a wicked winter.  Cold, blizzards, and finally one last late winter blast of heavy wet snow that weighed heavily on morale...and on local roofs.

On a recent walk I noticed that several Quonset huts in town had bitten the dust. 

I realized that I had never seriously thought about Quonset huts in my 62 years on earth.  A shameful oversight.

I of course knew that they were cheap, prefab structures widely used by the military, and that post WWII they were commonly used in civilian settings as well.  Many of the early ones in fact were Mil Surplus but subsequently they were offered by a wide range of builders.

I did not know that their antecedents went back even farther, to the so called "Nissen Huts" invented by the British in WW I.

These structures got their name from their inventor, a certain Major Peter Nissen of the Royal Engineers.  He was an interesting chap, born in America but moved first to Canada then to England with a brief stay in South Africa.  He enlisted at the start of hostilities in 1914.  The massive increase in the British Army made accommodation problematic, and the Nissen hut proved a versatile invention.  Over 100,000 were built during the war.  For this Major Nissen got no royalties although his design did generate income for him after the war when huts based on this design were constructed world wide.

Surprisingly there is still a Nissen Buildings Company going strong 102 years after their founding!

Alas, in the end these are still inexpensive, prefab buildings.  They are not destined to stand for centuries.  Here in my little town there will soon be two less of their Quonset descendants*.
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*So called because in the US they were first built at a Naval Construction Battalion Center at Quonset Point Rhode Island.