O.T...Old Barns

i know there are lots of farmers on this forum with family farms that go back generations. i sincerely hope that if your old wood frame barn is still standing, you'll preserve it. it sure would be a shame to drive thru the midwest farm country someday, and not see any of these huge, majestic old buildings on the horizon. i know nothing can last forever. and as i get older i realize this more. it must be pretty expensive to maintain these old structures when a new steel building is probably more economically feasible and better suited to modern farming.....sorry...just reminiscing about days gone by i guess...

-mike

-mike

It has been hard watching the old barn deteriorate. When I was a kid, the barn was carefully painted and its roof was totally straight. But over the last 10 years, or so, the wood shingle roof has gone bad, and some of them have blown off. If someone had put on a nice sheet metal roof, maybe the damage that obviously happened would not have occurred. The roof was getting swaybacked and some wall boards had popped loose.

The local paper had a feature about the old barn. It was built about 100 years ago as a draft horse barn for a farmer that found a deposit of clay on his property. He used many horses and wagons to haul the clay to Spokane, where it was sold to a brickworks. But that soon ended and the barn was used for various other things, including as a basketball court for a local school. In the 80's a relative of the original owner tried to raise money to restore the barn, by having barn dances. But that effort failed, and I think the relative died.

The article said that the farmer had been very particular about the lumber used to build his barn. He demanded that the lumber be knot free, which apparently was possible with the trees available at that time. The company that is tearing down the barn plans to salvage as much of the lumber as possible and make it into other things.

Unfortunately lots of times the magnificent barns people built way back when just no longer have a real use. Almost nobody has very many draft horses anymore, and the way barns were built to handle and store hay is not the way it is done now. The barn I grew up with is still being used, but the people that bought our buildings have riding horses, and still deal with small, square bales by hand. That barn would be useless to try to store large, round bales--you can't drive a vehicle inside, and it would be almost impossible to modify it so you could.

I hate to see the old barns go to heck. But it is hard to justify keeping up a building that you can't use, especially in a time when farming is such a low profit experience.

The land where the old barn has been is probably worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars. I sure don't blame the owner for letting it be torn down, especially in the poor shape it had been in lately.

One of the only things in life that is sure is that things will change....sometimes good and sometimes bad....but they are bound to change.

I too would be sad if all the old barns were gone.

How about a new barn that's going to look like an old barn when its finised? I too like the look of an old wood framed barn and chose to build mine with a structural steel frame work and wood framed walls. From the outside it will look like an old barn with drop siding. On the inside it will have a nice open floor layout with no columns to get in the way. Still a lot of old barns around here but some could really use some TLC.

Pat

Here is my old barn. This was moved to this sight by my Grandfather after the original barn was struck by lightning and burned, in the early 1950's.
I use it regularly and store about 5000 bales of first cutting each season along with a few round bales.

The farm has been in the family since 1868. The barn was built shortly after the Revolutionary War but we have no date. The adjoining farm house dates from 1802 and replaced a smaller one that only had two rooms.

The barn was near collaps in 1970. The sills were mostly gone and the bottom of half of the hand-hewn posts had to be cut off. It was originally a 40 x 50 structure but I kinda got carried away.

The building should last another couple of centuries. I put in an apartment in a hay loft where the windows are. The rest is storage or shop space. It is located 25 miles from Boston. The original town was incorporated in 1655.

It is the largest barn in town now. Less than a mile away was a four story barn with a huge ramp to get wagons into the third loft. I never saw it; only pictures. It must have been 100 x 250 feet. The Catholic church took over the property in the depression and built a seminary.

I remember the barn and the Kempton name (my grandma's maiden name) on the front. On one trip she had around fifty piglets in the barn yard. They were alot more fun than the animals at the Lincon Park Zoo. I was forbidden to enter the barn and couldn't really because the doors were always closed. Looking through the cracks, I recall seeing alot of loose hay. The barn burned several years later; maybe around 1955.

Thanks for the memories.

Clint

-mike

Here's ours - built in starting late 1940's - first used in 1952, as a dairy barn. Walls hand poured 12" thick concrete. Rafters are arched hand laminated, there's no inside framework! Most of the lumber was harvested off the farm, gravel for concrete was hauled by hand from pit at back of farm. Screened on a screen shaker power by old washmachine motor. Forms were hand built. Concrete mixed in hand mixer, and carried up ramps in wheelbarrow. Only help Dad had was the thrashing crew came in one Saturday, and they set the rafters with a ginpole. When he put roof boards on, he skipped every 4th or 5th so he had a way of climbing the roof. Roofing was put on in th winter - Dad built a rack to hold 1/2 a bundle, and brought in and warmed shingles in oven to make them soft enough to lay (T-lock shingles.) WONDER WHY THEY DON'T BUILD THEM LIKE THIS ANYMORE?
While my Dad was building this, my uncle was building his, a more conventional structure. Both barns are still in good structural shape, and should last a long time. Uncle's is going to need siding attention soon as boards are starting to deteriorate. Ours has had three sets of shingles, and now sports vinyl siding over old ship-lap lumber siding. Should be good for quite a while. This makes both barns about 60 years old, young compared with their neighbors, several of which have fallen in the last few years.

This is mine. Built in 1959 Timber beam construction. The upper beams across the center section are rough cut 2X12 X 31ft.
Barn is 60X64 ft.
Walt

-mike

My grandfather bought this place in 1914, and the barn had been there quite awhile at that point. My Dad started farming here in '39, and I grew up being around that barn. I remember when I was a kid that there was a corncrib in the north most area, and the northwest corner was a granary bin for oats. A driveway ran between the crib/granary and the rest of the barn. The east side was a milk parlor; we had 12 cows. The rest of the barn space was shelter for the milk cows. The hayloft was a great place to explore, play in, and dream.

By the time I was in HS, the milk cows had been gone for a few years, and the space was full of tractors, wagons, etc. Within a few more years livestock was gone from the farm, the hayloft was empty, and equipment was becoming too large to fit in the old barn.

In about '65, Dad decided to park the big grain dryer that he'd had for about three years in one place. We talked about it for a while, looked at possibilities, then he decided to put a set of truck scales on the east side of the barn, an "office" in the old milk parlor, and set the dryer at the southwest corner. He cut a hole in the roof, put a 35' bucket elevator up through the top, and set it to feed either the dryer or a round steel grain bin that was west of the barn. He built three bins inside out of plywood and heavy lumber. One was above the hayloft floor, 12'x16', and 12' high. He supported it with heavy cables suspended from the massive wood post-and-beam frame of the barn, and it had a slide door in the bottom to fill wagons or trucks that backed into the barn past the dryer on the south side. The other two bins were 8'x8' square and reached from the floor up almost to the roof. They had tapered lower sections and connected to the elevator with 6" augers. Grain came into the system from the north side of the barn via a 50' JD grain elevator that discharged through a hole in the top of the barn.

He operated a custom grain-drying service for about 4 years. In 1970, I moved back to the area and the old barn got a few more changes. We added a 32'x60' pole barn on the other side of the truck scales for grain storage, connected it to the old barn with a roof over the scale deck, and put another steel bin west of the barn. The old corn crib and granary were torn out and a section of the roofline raised so trucks could drive all the way through the barn, south to north. We then broke out some of the concrete floor and added a pit to dump trucks inside, along with another plywood bin for temporary grain storage. The addition of a 60' grain leg outside between a new dryer and the barn completed the system. We could dump wagons and trucks inside and outside, could send grain from any of the bins to any other bin, and could send dry grain to the pole barn. Dad obtained a grain dealer's license, and business took off. At harvest time in those days, corn was often 20% or higher moisture, we would buy wet corn, dry it, and send it to the terminal markets. We could dump in two locations, load trucks and semis in as many as 4 spots, and most importantly, during harvest time, we didn't close until after midnight. Several times we ran 24 hours for two or three days at a time.

As corn varieties improved, and drying grain became less important, Dad sold the steel bins, dryer, and other equipment. The old barn became quiet again, and looked very tired.

After Mom and Dad were both gone, I bought the rest of the farm, including the barns. The pole barn became implement storage and my shop. The old red barn sat empty, except for the Farmall M. The roof started looking pretty bad; after all, it was last shingled in '64. Several people asked me if I was going to tear it down.

In 2004, I gritted my teeth and had a new steel roof put on it. The guys that did the work commented that they'd never done that to a barn that old that was still that straight. Within another year or so, I hope to put metal siding on the outside. The pit inside is almost full of rocks and concrete chunks from other projects, and I expect to cement it shut later this spring. The barn will end up as home for the M, the Super M, the lawnmowers, etc.

A month or so ago, I finished working in my shop late one night, turned out the lights and headed for the house. I looked back at the old barn in the moonlight, then walked back to it and stood inside for a few minutes. In my mind I could still see the corncrib, hear the cows, and feel again the awe that I experienced as a kid when I'd walk in out of the winter cold to do my chores and feel as much at home in the barn as I did in the house.

Hopefully this works. This is our barn. The small farm only 5 acres has been in the family for 40 years. I am the 3rd generation owner of the property. This barn was built in 1880. I want to eventually restore the barn. For its age its in nice shape and stands tall. Our county cherishes the old barns around here and they all are registered with pictures. Its important to keep the history of these old barns. Its great to see people who care.

my canadian cousin still runs the family farm up there and the original barn is still standing and in use. (at least a hundred years old) he still keeps stock in the lower part, especially in winter, and the upper floors are filled to the gills with hay every year. i was up there this summer and found that he had totally replaced the main floor with timbers (all 12"X12") cut right off the farm and hewn at the sawmill he rebuilt and still operates. being as he's 70 years old and still manages to keep the whole place going, with help from his youngest boy and wife...farming must be a good healthy way to live.

-mike

built in 1915. dad and i redid the inside about 10 years ago. new loft, took a 9 ft shed off each side and added a 24 ft on the right and a 20 on the left. also has a 25 ft across the back. new roof. measures 74 wide and 65 deep. the roof rafters are original and are heart pine 2X4 (true 2x4) 22 feet long. picture was made last spring.

Sadly most of the old barns are long gone in my area of rural Missouri.I did stumble across this huge one near Farlington,KS about a year ago.Lets hope that this one is preserved.I do know of another huge barn in the Milford,MO area but cant get close enough to get a good picture.

Theres a round barn about 30 miles NE of me but I dont have a picture of it.I have a picture of a round barn in Oklahoma and will post it if I can find it.

I took this picture in October 2006 in the Medford,OK area.Its a beautifully restored drive in loft round barn.I wish that I had been a little closer to it when I took the picture.

The problem is they are obsolete, so they become left abandoned, can be hard to insure and or a myriad of other issues, that just get in the way.

If you don't keep a roof on them, and keep them up, nature takes it's toll. Time and money to repair and maintain them becomes low priority, same with the old large victorian homes or old brick and timber buildings.

Our area here was rich with all this kind of architecture and much of it is gone now too. The city was loaded with really ornate buildings, the old breweries and warehouses and railroad structures, if I could go back in time just to see them, the photos are astounding to look at.

We used to have to large hay barns, my neighbor the farmer, used to load the mow with square bales, back when 20,000 bales was the norm, these barns were still valuable for hay storage. Mortise and tenon joint timber framed, we used to drive the Ford 8000 right thru it, was an open type, with the mow on the left, 2nd floor on the right and below was where the cows came in for milking, we later used it for horses. Both barns were within 50 feet of each other, the wind took the oldest one, however the timber framing held up the roof blew off in '74, I saw it as a kid, was a sad day, and the other was torn down by the town after a battle, we got an injuction to stop them, it fell into disrepair, as did the old farm house. The barn should have never been let go, and the house could have been mothballed kept a roof on it and outside kept. The house was just too big, poorly insulated, very costly to heat, parents just let it go unfortunately. It don't take much for them to fall into serious disrepair, and become a huge project to bring em back, but if it were me, I'd have tried to keep them up, the place was the most beautiful in the neighborhood, old trees, the lawn and all the rest, people would stop and look, even had a guy stop in an do a painting of the place. I have to get after my father and find the old polaroids of the place as it was, fun place to grow up as a kid, hence my fascination with the old farms, they are something I've always appreciated too.

The lot is just empty now and I live above it, we still own all the land. The only thing left is the milk house, when I caught some kids that were tossing rocks at it, I almost strung them up on line, to them it was windows to break, to me it was all that's left, there is a photo of me in front of it as a youngster and that can make you a little angry when they can't leave it be. I am going to restore it soon and leave it as a momento of what once was, I have one old photo of the place showing both barns and a wooden silo I never knew existed as a kid, a neighbor was friends with family that owned it before we did, and that milkhouse is there, was in the 30's or 40's, being the last building left of what once was a very large farm, that little milk house is a neat little shack in my book.

-mike

my friends and i would hire on at hay-time and help stack bales in the lofts...but as we stacked we would leave voids between the bales which would later become secret tunnels we'd crawl around in. i know our guardian angles must have been working overtime. if the tons of hay would have ever collapsed on us it would have been all over! the worst i can remember was a busted arm suffered by yours truly when i slipped and fell while climbing around trying to catch baby pigeons. i could go on and on...i'll forever miss that experience and those old buildings...they were a big part of a vey happy childhood.

-mike

Stacks of ag tires in the other barn were a great place to hide and climb too, there were too many to keep at the dealership, that was another fun place to grow up, lots of fun memories

-mike