Sawmill Tower

Public Art #12

Technically, not "art," but I think it's very sculptural and it does sit out in the public arena. One woman's trash is another woman's treasure... The Sawmill District of Albuquerque, once abandoned, has been repurposed and gentrified into a hip, affordable neighborhood. 

History buffs: The sawmill plant and other buildings were connected by a railroad spur to the AT&SF’s main line. This allowed easy access for incoming shipments of logs cut in the white pine forests, and then a convenient shipping method to markets throughout the West. By 1908, the American Lumber Company was reportedly the largest lumbering enterprise in the Southwest. It was comprised of sawmills, a box factory, and a sash and door factory, large holding ponds for unprocessed logs, and its own electric plant built by the Albuquerque Gas & Electric Company – all connected by five miles of railroad track. Thirty to forty carloads of logs were shipped from the plant every day and as much as fifty million board-feet of finished lumber were produced per year (Simmons 1982: 332). Within three years of opening its mill, the company employed more than 850 people (Glover and Hereford 1986: 18).