Some Old Barn Pictures (eleven)

[Kevin]

These pictures are my dad's For Christmas, he sent our daughter a hard drive with pictures he thought she might like to see. I'm starting to go through it.

So these are just barns in the Midwest. Interesting...Barn wood is worth quite a bit. In fact, I know one of my parent's friends took apart an old barn and used the wood to line the inside of their house instead of painted drywall. I had some old Indian Blankets framed using old barn wood. That was 16 years ago and back then it was $400. I'll post some pictures of those later.

Anyway, enjoy the pictures, they are in no certain order or anything.

 

[xTopGun]

it always bothers me when I see one of these once great building succumb to Mother Nature's forces

 

[Ale-8(1)]

Great pics . . . thanks for posting.

I worked for the Louden Machinery Company in Iowa for many years. In its early days it pioneered a complete line of “barn equipment” including hay-handling systems, dairy barn arrangements, manure removal systems, and about anything you can think of including those wonderful top-ot-the-barn ventilators. They had a complete architectural engineering department and sold designs for all sorts of barn arrangements, and produced and circulated extensive fully-illustrated catalogs. They had a world-wide market.

I worked for them after the barn line was shut down, but the artwork and other documentation for the line was still present in the offices. Old barns are disappearing these days, and it’s fun to find one and examine it in detail. An interesting look back at our agricultural heritage.

 

[XUSNORDIE]

Awesome. My favorite scenery is old barns and I love cut corn fields....weird I know. When I would visit my parents in KY one the things I enjoyed was driving around and seeing all the old open barns with tobacco hanging to dry/cure.

 

[Ale-8(1)]

Awesome. My favorite scenery is old barns and I love cut corn fields....weird I know. When I would visit my parents in KY one the things I enjoyed was driving around and seeing all the old open barns with tobacco hanging to dry/cure.

Yep, and those drying barns are usually painted black.

 

[41Dude]

There is a show hosted by Clint Harp
Called Restoration Road. Several places where it is streaming HBO. Discovery channel and others.
Taking apart old barns to repurpose.
A lot of great woodworking and age of barns information.
He used to be Chip and Joanna Gaines wood and furniture guy.

 

[Kevin]

Awesome. My favorite scenery is old barns and I love cut corn fields....weird I know. When I would visit my parents in KY one the things I enjoyed was driving around and seeing all the old open barns with tobacco hanging to dry/cure.

yep. I spent a couple summers during college working at Nelson's Resort way up in Northern MN. Lots and lots of old barns up there. Lots of fun to drive around and see them.

 

[XUSNORDIE]

yep. I spent a couple summers during college working at Nelson's Resort way up in Northern MN. Lots and lots of old barns up there. Lots of fun to drive around and see them.

Nice. I also like covered bridges.....there are a lot of them around me, mostly northern Frederick County MD. Some have a bit of history to them dating back to the Civil War.

 

[Wyandot Jim]

Sad to say the barn I spent a lot of time in while working on a farm during high school is no more. The barn and farm were located in mid-Ohio and had an attached silo and a milking house for the dairy cows. During the winter the sheep and cows were kept inside which meant you had to put down a lot of straw on the sh!t to keep things clean. To feed meant you had to get hay down from the haymow and climb inside the silo to throw down feed. When spring came it's time to clean all that winter manure out and spread on the fields.
A lot of hard work and fun times working on the farm. I think the small farms with livestock are becoming a thing of the past. SAD for sure

 

[Tensaw]

Great photos!!! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Wyandot Jim]

Nice. I also like covered bridges.....there are a lot of them around me, mostly northern Frederick County MD. Some have a bit of history to them dating back to the Civil War.

This covered bridge was located on the farm that I worked on. It is known as the Swartz Bridge. Abe Swartz was the owner of the farm which was located in Wyandot County Ohio

 

[Wyandot Jim]

Yep, and those drying barns are usually painted black.

The old ones of the 40s and 50s were usually paint red with Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco on them. The barn was painted free if it had the advertisement on it.
I think red was the cheapest paint at that time.

Some beauties

 

[XUSNORDIE]

LOVE the barns with advertisements! Sort of down home humble way to advertise...

 

[Wyandot Jim]

LOVE the barns with advertisements! Sort of down home humble way to advertise...

A little history on the barns

The idea was simple: pay a farmer $1-$2 a month, less than $50 today, for the right to rent the barn for the ads. In the days before interstate highways, these barns, located along main roads, were seen by millions. The farmer not only got one wall of his barn painted, but he was also sent free Mail Pouch Tobacco. The company painted the entire barn once, but a sign painter would periodically repaint the Mail Pouch ads.



One of the sign painters, Harley Warrick, has taken on almost legendary status among Mail Pouch Barn aficionados. Between 1946 when he came home from World War II and 1991 when he retired, Warrick is said to have painted or repainted over 20,000 barns. Warrick said he could do one in six hours. He didn’t use a pattern or strait edge. He did it from habit. He said, “ The first 1,000 were a little rough, after that you get the hang of it.”

n 1965 the Highway Beautification Act allowed the Mail Pouch Barns to be grandfathered in as landmark signs rather than billboards. This allowed these iconic barns to remain, though none have been repainted for nearly 30 years, unless it was by the owner. Swisher International Inc. still pays the barn owners a small fee-$10 a year. Today, the Mail Pouch Tobacco Barn is becoming just a memory of America’s past. Once a common roadside sight, they are almost all gone.

https://www.hagenhistory.org/blog/mail-pouch-barns-a-fading-american-icon

 

[BULL'S-EYE]

Lot's of old barns in my area...Sadly, 2-3 fall down or get demolished every year. Our original barn was put up in 1860, and was refurbished in 1910, and again in the early 60's...But is currently in a sorry state.
It's served its purpose well for 160 years, but is not going to get any more work done on it at this point.
But, I have had some pretty impressive offers for salvaging the Oak timber It's framed in...Which I'm most definitely considering for when I retire here in a few more years.

 

[artey]

Heres the barn on our family farm I partially dismantled. Some of the siding is in my sisters home. Some is on the wall in my brothers gun room. I used the beams, rafters, roof boards, and siding to build a smaller barn for my gunroom.

Alot of work. Alot! Something a guy does once and says never again.

 

[artey]

 

[artey]

What bothers me even more than seeing an old barn start to lean and topple
Are the one room school houses. A barn may belong to a couple people still on the farm who decide what should be done.

But a schoolhouse might have had dozens of kids come through its doors and its hard to believe more of them
Dont get saved. Alot cheaper and easier to maintain than a barn.

 

[xTopGun]

Heres the barn on our family farm I partially dismantled. Some of the siding is in my sisters home. Some is on the wall in my brothers gun room. I used the beams, rafters, roof boards, and siding to build a smaller barn for my gunroom.

Alot of work. Alot! Something a guy does once and says never again.
View attachment 101927View attachment 101928View attachment 101929
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you'd make a lousy Mennonite . . . . . they'd have that down in a day, and a new one back up in another 2 . . . . .

 

[artey]

It was just me doing it. I had it torn down in 27 minutes and and had the new one up by suppertime. That includes the time I spent taking the photos.

 

[Wyandot Jim]

What bothers me even more than seeing an old barn start to lean and topple
Are the one room school houses. A barn may belong to a couple people still on the farm who decide what should be done.

But a schoolhouse might have had dozens of kids come through its doors and its hard to believe more of them
Dont get saved. Alot cheaper and easier to maintain than a barn.

Not a one room school but a small-town school that people are living in. It is about 5 miles from me. The school was built in 1925

 

[XUSNORDIE]

Gives you a warm feeling knowing the barnwood is being repurposed. I have fireplace mantle made from a beam from a locally torn down barn. I would love to fined enough "real" barnwood to do the inside of my garage being put up soon. It's pricey. I have a wall in my gun room and a ceiling in my family room paneled with with faux barnwood....it just isn't the same. I wish my beam mantle could tell stories.....

 

[contender]

Jim,, that covered bridge you show in post #12,, looks a lot like the one used by Clint Eastwood in "The Bridges of Madison County!"

 

[Ale-8(1)]

The old ones of the 40s and 50s were usually paint red with Chew Mail Pouch Tobacco on them.

Most of the old purpose-built tobacco drying (actually curing) barns around here were painted black and had very special construction features to encourage air circulation. Most did not have the usual hay mow. Many did have advertising painted on them in spite of their color.

The nice barns you show are more for conventional farming application with large overhead hay storage and ground-floor livestock handling.

 

[XUSNORDIE]

Most of the old purpose-built tobacco drying (actually curing) barns around here were painted black and had very special construction features to encourage air circulation. Most did not have the usual hay mow. Many did have advertising painted on them in spite of their color

Since you mentioned the "black" it dawned on me all of them did look much darker. I never really thought about it. My parents lived in western KY (Cadiz) but I would drive all over the surrounding areas on backroads admiring those curing barns...they were unique compared to the typical barns up north. Some looked as if they were ready to fall apart....but were still in use. I don't recall any with advertisements though.

 

[XUSNORDIE]

Lot's of old barns in my area...Sadly, 2-3 fall down or get demolished every year. Our original barn was put up in 1860, and was refurbished in 1910, and again in the early 60's...But is currently in a sorry state.
It's served its purpose well for 160 years, but is not going to get any more work done on it at this point.
But, I have had some pretty impressive offers for salvaging the Oak timber It's framed in...Which I'm most definitely considering for when I retire here in a few more years.

I'm assuming that's family history since 1860? Are you planning on keeping any of the salvage for a project to keep the barn "alive" in the family? Maybe that's personal, but just curious.

 

[txramfan]

A friend and his wife bought old lumber from barns to use building their new house. The exterior is completely built/sided in a hodge podge of different shades of weathered wood and faded paint. Hard to describe , it looks really nice sitting on 20 acres near his parents house.
He also used some old wood to decorate his gun room.

 

[BULL'S-EYE]

I'm assuming that's family history since 1860? Are you planning on keeping any of the salvage for a project to keep the barn "alive" in the family? Maybe that's personal, but just curious.

Yes, the farm has been in my family since the early 19th century. And I absolutely plan on keeping and using some of the wood, and in fact have a home remodeling project in mind involving shiplap made from the old barn beams.

 

[roarindan51]

looking at the pictures, I can hear the sounds of life, cattle lowing horses whinnying chickens clucking. tractors running, laughter cussing, hammering, birds singing, flies buzzing

 

[Track14]

This old girl did not last much longer than a couple of years.

It is way past fixing.