Thanks to my agricultural upbringing, I love old barns! That’s why it is a subject I return to time and time again in my paintings. In my ideal world every old barn would still have a small herd of milk cows, a draft horse or two, and a few pigs or sheep in it. There would also still be a hardworking family living on each farm who know what true “sustainable living” means; growing their own food, both plants and animals, and the waste from both of those going back into the land as fertilizer for future growth.
Today, unfortunately, many old barns are sitting idle and left to deteriorate. Once the foundation falls in or the roof starts to leak the end is near. I think it is a shame to let these iconic structures that stand as testament to our agricultural past fall apart and disappear from the landscape. In Wisconsin, where barns are a common site, it’s easy to assume that they will always be part of our rural scenery, but I fear that barns won’t be all that common in the future.
While driving down familiar roads I have noticed more and more often that a once prominent barn has now collapsed or has completely disappeared. This breaks my heart. To me it signals the end of an era, an era that defines what people think of when they hear the words ”family farm.” At one time these farms were full of life where all members of a single family worked hard each day to do the work that needed to be done, not because it was just their “job” but because it was their way of life.
This is the kind of farm I grew up on, from when I was born in 1975 to approximately 2004, when my parents sold the cows. My dad milked our holstein herd twice a day in our forty stanchion barn. My mom fed the cows and calves in the morning and us kids did that job at night. Of course, there were a million other jobs we did, like cut and stack firewood in the winter, and bale and unload hay in the summer. It was heavy work, but I can’t think of a more meaningful way to grow up. We had responsibilities and purpose. Even as a kid I realized it was a privilege, and was thankful, to live on our beautiful farm with lots of space to play, work, and enjoy life.
Our cow barn was the heart of the farm. All six people in our family spent countless hours in there milking, feeding, bedding and brushing cows, sweeping and scraping the floors, along with washing udders, pipe lines, and the milk tank. That was in the lower level of the barn, while up in the hay mow there was lots of stacking, throwing, climbing, swinging, and sweating that went on.
While growing up all of our farming neighbors were living similar lives, milking 40-70 cows, and growing the hay and grain to feed them. Today some of those barns sit empty, one burned down, and a couple of them now house heifers while the largely expanded dairy herds on those farms are milked in new steel pole shed-style barns with a milking parlor. Currently my parents rent our barn to a younger couple who have a smaller herd and produce organic milk.
This brings us back to why old barns should be preserved: Because they don’t build ‘em like they used to! Steel pole barns are the new barns of the day, and most observers would probably agree that they just don’t exhibit the aesthetic qualities of the traditional wooden barn. Unfortunately, it’s too expensive for most people to build barns using timber frame construction. It’s another sad fact that next to no one knows how to build using that style today. So, beside the loss of a way of life, specific to a time period in Wisconsin and other states’ agricultural histories, is the loss of the skills it took to build a traditional barn, many without nails, and many peculiar to various European ethnic groups. Carpenters with knowledge of mortise and tenon joinery, and masons who can build a sturdy foundation with whatever local stone is available are few and far between nowadays!
As mentioned earlier, barns are still commonplace throughout Wisconsin and surrounding states, but as these already aged structures get even older many more will collapse due to neglect. I understand that it is expensive to maintain such a large building, but I think every effort should be made to do so, especially if a barn has unique architectural characteristics, such as the round barns of Vernon County in western Wisconsin, or the Swiss style bank barns with pent roofs so common in Green County, both of which can be seen in the barn on the left in my watercolor at the top of this page.
A few years back my parents made the investment in our barn to replace the shingled roof with a steel one. This should help it last for many years to come. I commend all barn owners who have realized the agri ‘cultural’ significance of these structures, and have made the effort to preserve them. To aid in this effort it would be nice to see at least a small portion of the billions of tourism dollars that come into this state each year allocated towards a barn preservation fund. Wisconsin’s barns and farmscapes are an iconic image that visitors associate with the state, and something they love and expect to see. It would be a shame to allow this important symbol of rural America to eventually disappear.
It seems our neighboring state of Iowa has recognized this problem and is making more of an effort to preserve their remaining barns. From the internet I found information on at least three different organizations dedicated to the restoration, preservation, and rebuilding of “American Heritage barns”: The Iowa Barn Foundation, Iowa Barn Savers, and Preservation Iowa. There is even a documentary that was released in 2017 by Moline, Iowa film-makers called “The Barn Raisers,” which pays tribute to Midwestern history by featuring the “folk architecture” know as the barn. (I can’t wait to see it, and am so glad I learned of it while doing a little bit of research on barn preservation while writing this post).
*Suggested Reading: “Barns of Wisconsin” by Jerry Apps