Actually a lot of old barns had tulip poplar in the roof beams.
We have several 12x12 poplar beams in the basement, not sure when this house was built but the last addition was 1908.
I've also seen cotton wood used in construction, cut the boards oversized, stack em then place weights on top to keep from twisting too much, in a couple of years run em thru the saw mill again to size. Actually makes pretty decent framing lumber, pretty strong because it can be so stringy, just has to be kept dry.