Back in the 80s, with some friends, I owned a home built around 1920. All the beams were of chestnut.

The wiring was seriously outdated wire-and-tube. When I went to upgrade to (more modern and safer) BX, I discovered that I could not attach the BX to the beams. The chestnut wood was so hard that the staples just would not go in unless I predrilled holes.

Where I live now, we have some experimental (supposedly blight resistant, but it's impossible to tell until the tree is 30-ish) elm trees, and I dearly wish we'd do the same with the American chestnut.

As it is, we're looking at planting some American-Chinese hybrid chestnut trees as part of a permaculture project.

It's hard to image how different woodlands were before the chestnuts and elms were gone. And the disaster is ongoing: the wooly algelid is spreading a fungus that's killing our hemlocks.