I am working on a National Register nomination for a railroad station in the Northeast. In my research, I saw a designation (ca. 1917) for the roofing of this and several other stations as "Paroid". Since the roofing of other stations was described as "slate" or "boards", I have interpreted "paroid" as some form of material. I am hoping someone reading this board will know what this material is (or if it is some type of "brand name"). Identifying this material is crucial to the nomination as well as the related restoration project.

Thank you for your help.

smi1023@warwick.net

Suzanne,

I made a quick search on the web (Yahoo, Altavista, Northern Light) for "paroid" and "paroid roofing" and came up with only one page that may help you perhaps focus your further search: The page

http://www.rootsweb.com/~argreene/adsfor9.htm

contains "Ads for 1908 Paragould Directory - page nine", among them the following:

=====
Brown Lumber Company

Yellow pine, Lumber, Cypress, and Red Cedar Shingles
SASH,DOORS, AND BLINDS
Agents for Paroid Roofing
=====

If you replace "adsfor9" with "homepage" in the address, you get to the entrance of the site where this particular page lives. I know, this won't help much, but to me, it seems to point to a brand name, and maybe the "1908 Paragould Directory" could be a hint for further search as well.

Cheers, Jochen

JochenTrost@cs.com

> I am working on a National Register
> nomination for a railroad station in the
> Northeast. In my research, I saw a
> designation (ca. 1917) for the roofing of
> this and several other stations as
> "Paroid". Since the roofing of
> other stations was described as
> "slate" or "boards", I
> have interpreted "paroid" as some
> form of material. I am hoping someone
> reading this board will know what this
> material is (or if it is some type of
> "brand name"). Identifying this
> material is crucial to the nomination as
> well as the related restoration project.

> Thank you for your help.

I have seen roofing on late 19th-early 20th century stations that resembles conventional asphalt shingles in material, but instead of a series of small rectangles oriented horizontally as in a conventional roof, these shingles are larger, square and hung from one corner so that they look like a series of diamond shapes. That's the best way I can describe them. One example that comes to mind that I see often is the depot in Goffstown, NH, now a hardware store. Could "Paroid" describe the shape rather than the material? Sorry about the earlier dud post. First time jitters with the new format.

> I believe what you're describing here is something called "hexagonal tiles" - is the bottom corner clipped off? These were/are made by the Supradur company or Rye, N.Y. The hexagonal application is said to be not as good as straight shingle application (less overlap therefore less redundancy), but I had a roof put on in 1926 take the full force of hurricane Andrew in 92 and loose one, count'em, ONE tile. One whole wall had been taken out by the surge, but the roof held. The originals were a cement/asbestos compound, they have since been reformulated.

The term "paroid" makes me thing of a proprietary name for a bitumen based product, we still use 'rubberoid" and others in the architectural biz.

The original poster might want to contact the preservation assistance division of the National Park Service in D.C., I checked their preservation briefs, but evidently membrane roofing systems aren't covered.

rudd@cogdellmendrala.com