Old Barns

Thanks for sharing.
I love old barn pictures. Always have thought the same thing. It must have a long history.

Is that a "dog tent" on the left under the lean-to?

Knew a fellow 40+ years ago who covered the entire State working for the Extension Service who took hundreds of photos of barns, maybe thousands. I would love to get a hold of that collection today. I would bet at least 80 percent are gone today.

Big money in that old distressed barn wood. Gets recycled into furniture, flooring and all kinds of high end products.

Nate The Surveyor, I hear ya! I'm trying to take more pictures, because I am finding out that lots of what I see is disappearing. If I dont share it, it may be gone forever. I am regretting many pictures I did not take.

Same here in Tasmania. Unfortunately they're a threatened species as most get replaced with modern metal sheds.
Wood burnt!
Went to a job once with old barn full of old drays, wagons and other horse stuff.
Lot was smashed by excavator and burnt.
Not very impressive as the horse drawn organisations would have jumped at the lot.
I watched a TV program last week where a New Zealander bought 2 1700's wooden barns from USA and built his house from them.
Came up well, but locals deemed them too fragile to be structurally safe for load bearing and was encased by steel beams.
Thanks for pics, keep them coming.

Richard, post: 390221, member: 833 wrote: Not very impressive as the horse drawn organisations would have jumped at the lot.

Here lots of people would of loved to have a chance at buying the old horse powered stuff, especially if it could be put back to work. Such a shame that it was lost in such a senseless way

Holy Cow, post: 390170, member: 50 wrote: Knew a fellow 40+ years ago who covered the entire State working for the Extension Service who took hundreds of photos of barns, maybe thousands. I would love to get a hold of that collection today. I would bet at least 80 percent are gone today.

That would have been a worthwhile endeavor for sure. I too would like to see a collection like that.

I'm not making excuses, but it would have been nice to have a personal camera/ storage device for the first 80% of my career...I would have taken more pictures. I would have also liked to have collected photos of all the crazy home made contraptions that either open, close or keep field gates in a certain position. I've seen everything from a cinder block and a pulley to a leaf spring affair that "cocked" the gate open, and then was released by driving over a trip on the other side.

Would have made a good coffee table book..."Gates I Have Known".

paden cash, post: 390238, member: 20 wrote: Gates I Have Known

I have seen a couple of odd ones, but just a couple, and they were grown up with the regular gate obviously more used. But to see more contraptions woulda been something I would of found an interesting browse on a rainy day.

Great coffee table book if anyone owned a coffee table anymore.

FL/GA PLS., post: 390168, member: 379 wrote: Is that a "dog tent" on the left under the lean-to?

Looks like it to me. One fancy one, with hard top!!

Nate The Surveyor, post: 390254, member: 291 wrote: Looks like it to me. One fancy one, with hard top!!

I use to live next to a fella that raised (and hunted) coon dogs. Yes, it was noisy even though his house was a quarter mile from mine.

At any given time he had probably two dozen dogs. His approach to dog shelters was unique and efficient. Three wooden warehouse pallets (probably free); one for the bottom and two leaned and nailed up to a peak. 10 or 15 composition shingles tacked on and the dog had a great den. A little bit of straw in the winter and the dogs were happy happy.

Definitely agree on gates too.
I've a job where the gate is opened by a water set up.
Tip the lever and it passes water from one receptacle to another, a weight drops and pulls gate open.
Similar on exit.
I'll have to get a photo.

Nate The Surveyor, post: 390151, member: 291 wrote:

If old barns could talk, I wonder what they would say?

And, when they lean, I think they even have larger stories, they could tell. I'm trying on every job to take a few pics. Something for the journey.
A flower here, or there. A tree. Whatever it is. Thanks for looking at my pics.
Nate

NYS has a historic barn preservation program where you get tax credits and some matching funds. Still, it was way too expensive to fix the barn my great-grandfather built in 1880's. Folks kept telling me to take it down instead (had barely survived a tornado in the 1970's). Tried to get some Amish to work on it but they wouldn't travel as far as it was. About two years ago the wife sent me out on Christmas eve to pick up some eggs and a few other things. Amish Abe had a stand outside the store selling eggs and such, along with Border Collie's, three of which were left in the horse carriage. They really wanted to sell the remaining dogs, and I really needed some help on the barn. A deal was struck. I came home with eggs and a puppy smelling of horse and hay. That spring Amish Abe rebuilt the barn in exchange for the horse drawn equipment stored therein. He immediately began using it on his farm. I paid him for the hemlock he cut and sawed on his back forty to use in the project. The barn, equipment, and all parties lived happily ever after. Well, except maybe the wife who wakes up mighty early to take the dog out.

Wow. Thats cool, Duane!

I have an old barn on the property I bought in 2001 and built my house/office on in 2009. It is built of chestnut wood (now almost completely gone from PA due to blight) with pegs (no nails). It is in pretty decent shape structurally, although the outer skin (planks) is in bad shape. I store a lot of stuff in there. It has one corner that has a failed column, one of these days I need to jack it up and pour a new foundation pier and cutoff the rotten portion. I figure it rotted because that is where all the cow excrement and waste flowed to. It is wooden sided on the bottom floor on three sides, the fourth side is a stone wall, with the driveway to my house behind that. It has a door in the wall, and a short passage leading to a circular room under the driveway. I assume that was the bottom of a silo that was removed long ago. It has all been scanned, including the silo room.

A friend who spent his life in construction estimated the barn was built in the latter part of the 19th century. I know when the concrete floor was poured, the guy who bought the farm in 1923 has his initials in the concrete with a date shortly after he bought it.

This barn is probably one of the most photographed in the Adirondacks of NYS. I took this in 2011 and the old barn has gone down hill since. I believe there is a group trying to raise funds to restore it. If you google "keene barn ny", you'll find all kinds of info.

Gregg

Ok, this isn't a barn, it's an old general store in the community of Norton TX (now a blip on the paved road) and the lath is pointing to the old slot in the wall where visitors could drop their outgoing letters without having to come inside, 24 hour service! Got that story from an old lady who grew up there as a kid, in the early 20th century.

Did you really think we could talk about old barns and not stir up an Uncle Paden barn story? Of course not...

There's an old round barn on Route 66 in Arcadia, OK. Folks finally got together in the late '80s and restored it. Now it's a sight-seer's mecca for all the old grey haired motorcyclists that let the SSA make their Harley payments. It didn't use to be that way. As a matter of fact, in the early '70s the roof had darn near fallen in and it was full of junk.

There use to be an APCO gas station just west of the barn. The old man that ran it lived in the house that was connected to the station. Just this side of that blue Chevy use to sit two old gas pumps. The wooden garage to the left also use to proudly announce "Mechanic on Duty" and "Flats Fixed"...although the X was backwards..

At the time I was keeping company with a girl that lived in Chandler, a little town about 25 miles east of Arcadia. Oklahoma City was about 20 miles west. I use to stop in, get gas and jaw with the old man that ran the station and pet his dog. The barn was adjacent to his place and all the junk in there was his, but I don't know if he owned it. But he knew everything about that old barn.

Late one night I was heading back to OKC and the fuel line broke on my old pickup about a mile from the station. It was 2AM and I knew the old man would open up about 7 so I walked old 66 and crawled in the old barn to snooze. I didn't feel like a trespasser because I knew the old man and I also knew his dog...who stayed with me in the barn until the sun came up.

He use to have a bench under the roof there by the gas pumps. I and the dog had migrated to the bench about dawn and I knew the old man would shake me when he got up. He did. But we had to have coffee before he got started. I didn't mind a bit.

I helped him push the doors open to the garage and we found a short piece of rubber fuel line and a couple of clamps. He drove me back to my pickup and I was back on the road in no time...probably wasn't too late for work either.

He and I also use to walk across the street to the wood along the Deep Fork (it's a tree farm now) and hunt Morels. He had a good eye for such things.

Now the barn is all painted up and folks come from miles around to see "The Round Barn". Maybe someday there will also be a sign there stating "Paden Cash slept here". 😉