[netzone]

Well, you could probably find it. You definitely had more of the really large trees in North America as far as I know, historically anyway.

Today, building something with massive sturdy timber would likely not be much cheaper (if at all) than just building a concrete box.

[maxerickson]

Yeah, there's plenty of big trees left too. Stuff just gets cut smaller because no one wants to pay for extra size.

There's really no reason to use huge beams for house style construction. Decent wood is incredibly strong.