Thursday, February 10, 2000
Barns disappear with farms
Groups work at preserving rural heritage
BY LEW MOORES
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The old wood barn still stands, musty and earthy even in the cold, its wooden beams slathered with the encrusted work of mud daubers, with bales of hay still stacked on the floor.
Even today children make forts of the hay bales, just as Bob Niederman did when he was a youngster growing up on this farm in Liberty Township in Butler County.
“This barn just has a lot of character,” said Mr. Niederman, as he stood in the 2,900-square-foot barn with his father, Robert Niederman.
“If they could just talk,” said the elder Mr. Niederman.
Old barns like the Niedermans' have added character to the rural landscape for two centuries. But they are a vanishing slice of Americana.
No one really tracks how many old barns disappear each year, but some suggest the loss can be tied to the disappearance of smaller, family-owned farms specifically, and American farms generally. Steve Gordon, a survey manager with the Ohio Historical Society, said family-owned farms in the state are being lost or consolidated into larger farms; from about 220,000 family-owned farms in 1910 to 70,000 in 1990.
When the Niederman barn — they're not sure of its age,
but it probably dates to the late 1800s — is not being used for storage, it is a playground for children, a wood palace of memories, even a place of worship during the Christmas season. It survives because Niederman Dairy Farms survives. Bob Niederman is a third-generation dairy farmer and thinks he is the last dairy farmer left in Liberty Township.
“I would have loved to have watched them build these things,” he said as he gazed up at the roof that soars overhead.
Drive north on Ohio 747 and note the disappearance of farmland and a changing landscape now dotted with upper-income suburban subdivisions and commercial development. The same can be seen driving north on Interstate 71, says Colerain Township farmer Norm Purdy — and the landscape is in part defined by old barns in various stages of decay.
Jim Lindley, a professor of agricultural engineering at North Dakota State University in Fargo, N.D., said old barns are disappearing because barn use has changed. Poultry farming, for instance, demands more specialized structures, he said, and the larger farms and more livestock have outgrown the barns.
“Quite a bit of automation goes into the newer facilities,” said Mr. Lindley. “The old barns are attractive and do contribute to the appearence of the countryside, but they are disappearing.”
Ohio has seen the loss of thousands of farms just in the last 40 years — from 158,000 in 1958 to 80,000 in 1998. Indiana has gone from 222,000 in 1900 to 58,000 in 1997. Kentucky from more than 259,000 in 1909 to 82,000 in 1997.
With the farms go the barns, although there is a movement in some states, Ohio among them, to preserve them. Called Barn Again, it was a project started by an agriculture magazine and has been picked up by county extension agents, universities and the Ohio Historical Society.
Barn Again encourages farmers to hang onto their old barns, and determine whether they are worthy of rehabilitation before being abandoned to time and the weather.
“There is an interest in preserving them,” said Roger Bender, an extension agent in Shelby County, Ohio. But it can be an expensive proposition. It can cost $3,000 to put a new roof on a barn, $4,000 to $5,000 for a new foundation. It can cost thousands of dollars for a new coat of paint.
Mr. Bender himself has a barn from 1894, and half the roof needs to be replaced.
“I know what my decision is going to be,” he said. “I'm going to fix the barn. But some others are saying, "I'm trying to support my family. I can't justify that if I can't even park my big combine in there.' I could take you to a half-dozen barns here in Shelby County that are gradually just falling down.”
Farms are consolidating and growing larger and more specialized, but those in the Barn Again program think the smaller farms that survive would do well to look into having their barns saved and adapted.
“What the Barn Again program is trying to show is that in many cases the barns can be adapted to meet modern needs,” Mr. Gordon said. “But you have to overcome the mind-set that they are old and antiquated when they can be useful. Farmers can save money through rehabbing rather than demolition and construction of new buildings.”
While saving an old barn from demolition is a way of preserving an agricultural heritage, he said, that is not the primary emphasis of Barn Again.
“It's meant to be a program that's practical and meets modern-day needs,” he said.
Barn Again holds workshops and sends out technical information on roof and structural repair; it also maintains a list of contractors who do rehabilitation work on barns and farm buildings. Typically, three to five workshops are held each year around the state, which attract anywhere from 50 to 100 people. The next workshop is March 9 north of Columbus, with workshops being planned for April in Clinton and Fayette counties.
“We believe many of these buildings can continue to serve a functional, productive use on a farm,” said Mr. Gordon.
But not all barns are kept in agricultural use, which Barn Again would prefer. There are those around the country like David Gaker, who lives in Liberty Township, who save barns by relocating and converting them to other uses.
Many end up as homes. Mr. Gaker lives in one, a barn that dates to 1876 that he relocated from Trenton.
“I pride myself on saving old barns,” said Mr. Gaker. “I've seen a great decline in the number of barns in this area due to urban sprawl and development and the deterioration of the small, family farm. The needs of agriculture have changed.
“I relocate barns. I take them down piece by piece, number them and put them back up. I just did one last year as a community center. It didn't stay in agriculture, but it still saved the structure and the history of it. I'm preserving history.”
BARN BACKERS
For more information about the March 9 Barn Conference in Delaware, Ohio, contact Charles Whitney, a barn consultant, at (740) 393-2246. The conference is at Liberty Presbyterian Church in Delaware.
For information on the Barn Again program, contact Steve Gordon, Ohio Historical Society, at (614) 298-2000. Or call the Ohio State University Extension at (614) 292-6131.
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