Hickory sapling furniture got its start in Indiana in the late nineteenth century.  By the end of the nineteenth century the sturdy chairs and tables were being shipped by rail to the east with many pieces making their way to the Great Camps of the Adirondacks.  A number of the individuals that built Great Camps in the Adirondacks would later develop and build the lodges of the National Parks in the American West and the furniture of choice would become the Hickory Sapling chairs and tables from Indiana.

The Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina, 1914.

Hickory sapling for a number of reasons is the ideal natural material to use for the manufacture of outdoor inspired furniture.  The saplings themselves are abundant and relatively easy to harvest.  They readily grow back from the stumps of previously harvested saplings making it a naturally renewable resource.  It grows straight and tall and is very strong for both its weight and size.  It addition, boiling it makes it shapeable and it retains its shape once it dries.  Longevity is a given as the saplings themselves are almost indestructible.  In fact, many of the original chairs that were installed in the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park in 1906 are still in use today.

Bess Truman and guests at Camp David in 1946 relaxing in hickory sapling hoop chairs.

Generation after generation of vacationers to the American West fell in love with the hickory sapling rockers and chairs and over the last one hundred years this icon of rustic design has created quite a following.  It has always been associated with recreational retreats and still is to this day.

Our hickory sapling rockers and chairs are also made in Indiana by the same company that originally outfitted the Old Faithful Inn in 1906, as well as the Grove Park Inn in 1914.  They are still made to order and handcrafted one at a time by craftsmen that defy the digital age of the twenty-first century.

One of our many hickory sapling rockers, made just like they were one hundred years ago.