In July 2022, my company, Lacey Well Drilling, drilled a well for some young people, Jeff and Michelle Bryan, who live a few miles from us. During the course of this work, the talk turned to barns, and the Bryans mentioned they would like to have one. Later, that same year, Larry Jorgensen called my wife, Joan, saying his son-in-law was going to pull the roof from the old, sound barn, push it into a hole and burn it! Joan then called Michelle, telling her of the find. Jeff asked me to go to look at it with him, since I have had some experience moving large structures, having been involved helping outfits with several barns at our museum site. Jeff and I looked at the old barn and thought it appeared to be in relatively good shape inside, with an abundance of bracing in both the hay loft and underneath it.
After making arrangements with the owner, Dennis Anderson, Jeff then contacted a moving company. There was a normal amount of power lines that had to be either lifted or cut to take the barn past them. The biggest concern was a two-pole line. Luckily, it turned out that this set of wires was some 45 feet high, and the barn, once loaded onto the moving trucks, only went to 39 feet, making these expensive-to-move power lines a nonissue!
The 5-mile trip to the new site was bid at $500 an hour. The mover was concerned with the slight lean the barn had, but it turned out this corrected itself for the most part when the old structure was lifted up, as the foundation on the east side had deteriorated. The journey along the 5-mile road was uneventful and took perhaps a little longer than it should have. However, the last part of the move involved driving the barn across Jeff and Michelle’s 80-acre catty-corner (diagonally) to the new foundation. It took about an hour, and it was a muddy mess! You could see just how heavy the barn was, too, since the dirt settled inside of the tire walls as it was pulled across the farm.
Prior to moving, Jeff needed to establish 27 holes for the barn’s posts to land on. I gave him a batch of short well casing scrap pieces to make the top of these piers “cleaner-looking” inside the building. Once placed on top of the numerous posts, most of them largely agreed with the spacing. The few that needed correction were easily managed by jacking up the support beam the barn was resting on, slightly bumping the post until it sat centered on the fresh pier and then letting the jack down as the barn’s post lined up with the new pier.
Once over the new, solid foundation, removing the barn from the semi-tractor beams involved operating long hydraulic cylinders on a tractor in front. These were managed remotely. The cylinders must have been about a 5-foot stroke. They would push the tractor forward (brakes were locked), which, in turn, would move the beams that were sitting under the barn forward. Each time, the barn would be jarred forward. Luckily, none of the support piers were damaged in this process!
Now that the “new” barn is settled into place, the real work and expense has begun for Jeff and Michelle, as they work to make the barn their own. FC
Jim and Joan Lacey operate Little Village Farm, a museum of farm collectibles housed in 10 buildings at their home near Dell Rapids, S.D. Contact them at (605) 428-5979.
