Proud Survivors:
Aging barns offer testimony of craftsmanship and care
By Paul F. Long and Gary Van Hoozer
Nothing stands prouder than a well-maintained barn. But like many antiques, more than a few barns have been lost due to neglect.
Maintenance costs and obsolescence are natural enemies of barns. However, preservation efforts are increasing. Barns are seeing new uses as shops, restaurants, bed-and-breakfast inns and museums.
Early in American history, basically three barn styles were used: the Pennsylvania Dutch, Jamestown colonists barns, and barns of New England, such as the saltbox. Differences resulted from availability of building materials, and individual builders' quirks.
Added to those were unique entries, such as the variant of the Pennsylvania standard called the "Yankee version," and the round barn.
The tall "Prairie Barn" was the most common barn in the Midwest and West. Built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Prairie Barns were large enough to house draft animals, milk cows and hay (stored in a loft overhead). Prairie barns were generally of frame construction with gambrel roofs, though some featured a curved roof called a "gothic." Such barns typically sat on a foundation of stone or concrete, with sidewalls of stone for the bottom four to five feet.
"Western" style barns became more popular as settlers moved to the Plains. These tall, frame barns had extremely sharp-pitched "saddles" (gabled roofs). Both Prairie and Western barns had a large hay door opening into the haymow, and a rain hood (or overhang) above the door. Inside, along the ridgepole, ran a track which extended out along the hood from which a hayfork was dropped to lift hay from a wagon to the loft. Both barn types usually had an enclosed granary.
In the Midwest, where limestone was easily accessible, another barn style was often chosen. Limestone blocks were used extensively for walls, with the roofs, rafters and interior framing of hardwood (often walnut cut on the farm). Wooden wood (often walnut cut on the farm). Wooden pegs often were used in place of nails to secure the frame and rafters.
Many limestone barns were patterned after the Pennsylvania Dutch barns of the East, placed in the side of a hill in three levels. The lower level snuggled into the hillside and was used for livestock. The second level was for implement and grain storage, and the third level was used as a haymow.
As the second level was built at the height of the hill, a hay wagon could be driven into it so hay could be forked into the haymow, or vice versa. In the Pennsylvania Dutch version, three sides of the barn were made of stone, with the south side of frame construction. Many such barns had air vents, and large, elaborate cupolas on top for interior ventilation.