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HomeMy Public PortalAboutBarnslyenis - l��ioly McCall show to feature historic barns of Idaho "Barns of Idaho," a traveling ex- hibit, will be presented on Friday, Nov. 18, at 7 p.m. at the McCall Public Library, 218 Park St., in McCall. The illustrated program will be presented by Arthur A. Hart, former director of the Idaho State Historical Society. Admission is free and re- freshments will be served. One of Idaho's most endearing legacies is the rich variety of farm structures that have been part of the economic lives of this agricultural state. Unfortunately, barns are be- coming obsolete and are rapidly dis- appearing from the community land- scapes due to decay, neglect, obso- lescence and urban growth. By means of a traveling exhibit and an audio-visual presentation, His- toric Idaho has documented this fas- cinating part of our heritage, to keep alive the history, technology and tra- dition of Idaho's agricultural past. Historic Idaho is a non-profit cor- poration dedicated to publications on Idaho's history, people and cul- ture. Idaho barns have been designed for climate, available building mate- rials and tradition that mirror the ethnic background of the builder. The Finns of Long Valley built barns with distinctive proportions, the barns of southeastem Idaho reflect the Mor- mon barns of Utah, and Canyon County farmers reflect the styles of Iowa and Missouri from which they came. Although examples of most barns still survive, their numbers are dwin- dling. No longer a horse -powered world requiring big lofts for hay stor- age, the tractor and the baler have been largely responsible for making barns obsolete. Corporate agriculture, where several small farms are often combined, has led to the leveling of whole farmsteads — house, barn and outbuildings. Hart has photographed nearly a thousand barns in Idaho, and these photographs of Idaho history and tech- nology have been incorporated into a traveling exhibit. Well-known throughout Idaho, Hart has written or co-authored 10 books about the Gem State. His con- tributions to architectural history and historic preservation have earned him the Phoenix Award and honorary membership in the American Insti- tute of Architects. The event is sponsored by the Friends of the McCall Library and the Idaho Humanities Council. For infor- mation, call 634-5522. N-el»�-11WQAlbel /7f/ f Photo courtesy McCall Public Library This photograph of the Nickolai Wargelin barn is one example of old-time barns featured in Friday's show. Show to feature historic barns "Barns of Idaho," a traveling ex- hibit, will be presented on Friday at 7 p.m. at the McCall Public Library, 218 Park St., in McCall. The illustrated program will be presented by Arthur A. Hart, former director of the Idaho State Historical Society. Admission is free and re- freshments will be served. One of Idaho's most endearing legacies is the rich variety of farm structures that have teen part of the economic lives of this agricultural state. Unfortunately, barns are be- coming obsolete and are rapidly dis- appearing from the community land- scapes due to decay, neglect, obsoles- cence and urban growth. By means of a traveling exhibit and an audio-visual presentation, His- toric Idaho has documented this fas- cinating part of our heritage, to keep alive the history, technology and tra- dition of Idaho's agricultural past. Historic Idaho is a non-profit cor- poration dedicated to publications on Idaho's history, people and culture. Idaho barns have been designed for climate, available building mate- rials and tradition that mirror the eth- nic background of the builder. The Finns of Long Valley built barns with distinctive proportions, the barns of southeastern Idaho reflect the Mor- mon barns of Utah, and Canyon County farmers reflect the styles of Iowa and Missouri from which they came. Although examples of most barns still survive, their numbers are dwin- dling. No longer a horse -powered world requiring big lofts for hay stor- age, the tractor and the baler have been largely responsible for making barns obsolete. Corporate agriculture, where several small farms are often combined, has led to the leveling of whole farmsteads — house, barn and outbuildings. Hart has photographed nearly a thousand barns in Idaho, and these photographs of Idaho history and tech- nology have been incorporated into a traveling exhibit. Well-known throughout Idaho, Hart has written or co-authored 10 books about the Gem State. His con- tributions to architectural history and historic preservation have earned him the Phoenix Award and honorary membership in the American Insti- tute of Architects. The event is sponsored by the Friends of the McCall Library and the Idaho Humanities Council. Neglected buildings show pioneers' backgrounds Monumental barns: BUHL (AP) — Built larger than needed, now largely neglected, they stand as monuments to the industry of those who built the Magic Valley. Huge, old barns dot the landscape of Twin Falls County and are a piece of classic Americana — even though their architectural designs often were Dutch, British or German. Lured by promises of ample water and daily sunshine, immigrants from the East and Midwest brought with them skills and judgments acquired in differ- ent circumstances. They set to work building barns almost immediately. "Nowadays, people build a fine home first. Then, you built the barn, because that made the living," says Ted Sand- meyer, whose father moved to Buhl and bought a dairy six years after it was built. Though convenient for dairymen, the large barns proved a frill for some oth- ers who found they could store hay safely and easily outdoors in the arid Idaho climate. The structures, if they are used at all, now house winter cattle or farm machin- ery. A Buhl native, Madeline Kelley Buck- endorf is compiling information about a cluster of barns in the area to nominate �no3TAQ TESIIVIIAP Pennsylvania cheesemaker of German WEDNESDAY, ancestry. He earlier built one of the first MAY 12, 1982 ' _' cheese factories in the West, at Tilla- q ? al mma°ok�, , HI-- O,@� t ,.. s sue,, Ett`.,Wf dozen barns in the area r`. carry the distinctive touches of master �'. builder Henry Schick, who accompanied Kunze to Idaho. His barns were sturdy, but it was his Q _ added-`t-euches that gave the buildings their distinction. R.gtvn. arn, Schick added flared rafif` t' dotaion-dome caps on the silo and ventilators. One in tjk area features a cupola with a gambr" p, which mirrors the shape p PAYETTE LAi'•.=S PR G ESSIVE CLUB . Do NOT REF .OVF for the National Register of Historic Places. The designation would recognize the historical importance of the barns and allow owners certain tax advantages if they restore the structures or remodel them to serve modern functions. One of the more prominent structures is the Clover Leaf dairy and cheese fac- tory, dedicated in 1912 amid a good deal of community fanfare. It was purchased six years later by Sandmeyer's father. Measuring roughly 60-by-120 feet, the barn is large enough to house some high school auditoriums. It was designed by Gustave Kunze, a of the barn's roof. Other barns sported a variety of styles. Many were built from lava rock, which was plentiful during development of Twin Falls and Northside tracts in 1905 and 1907. One of the largest rock barns, a three- story structure along U.S. 90, was com- missioned as a 60-cow dairy and was said to have needed 1,500 loads of rock to finish. Whether they were intended for prac- tical use or as monuments to their de- signers' imagination, the barns' tradition is worth preserving, Buckendorf says. By ARTHUR A. HART Director Idaho Historical Museum Architecture with a capital "A" has long been consid- ered a subject worthy of scholarly attention. In colleges across the country and around the world, students consider the famous styles and buildings of other times, and learn to recognize the works of "greats" like Bramante, Michelangelo, Sir Christ- opher Wren and Charles Bul- finch. The fact that most of the world's buildings have been constructed without the aid of professional designers with formal training is often overlooked. Idaho architecture is no exception. Most of the build- ings we see, especially in rural settings, were done without an architectect. They are often classic il- lustrations of the power of folk tradition — styles and methods for building passed down from generation to generation outside the for- mal educational or "book - Idaho Yesterdays Many Buildings Rise On 'Folk Tradition' ish" traditions of trans- mitting knowledge. Although all architecture is influenced by tradition, those of folk architecture are most often passed along by word of mouth and by demonstration. Its other es- sential and inescapable in- gredients are its adaptations to available building mate- rials and local climate. Variations in style and method from place to place in Idaho are most often tra- ceable to these variables in tradition, materials, and cli- mate. For the past two months, thirty students at the College of Idaho, in a course called "Architecture in Idaho," have been doing field work in the southwestern part of the state, collecting informa- tion on such traditional structures as barns, fences, corrals, grain cribs, and hay derricks. They have been trying to discover patterns in con- struction methods, mate- rials, and the sources of tra- ditions. As might be expected, they have found that emi- grants to Idaho in the latter part of the 19th century, for example, often built barns like the ones they were used to in the East or Midwest. From the hundreds of structures photographed, measured, and written up, patterns are emerging. Analysis of barn features, like roof style, hay -door hoods, cupolas, kind of sid- ing, and placement of win- dows, for example, show when they were most popu- lar, where the people came from who favored one style over another, and which are most numerous. What has long been a mat- ter of speculation by a few geographers who have dopgo, cursory studies, can now 6td done statistically with much more evidence than was ever available before. Tabulation of results aii careful analysis will lead to publication of the study, ing us for the first tim clear picture of Idaho's rural architecture without archi- tects. �1 More than mere statistic moreover, that picture Weldon R. Fry's barn near Eagle was built in 1900 reveal a rich, varied, and ef- fective architecture that is inextricably linked with the human beings who made Idaho their home in early days. An example of one such building studied suggests the colorful Idaho history con- nected with many of them. The Weldon R. Fry barn near Eagle was designed and built by Mr. Fry's grandfather, George Wash- ington Fry, in 1900. He hauled the lumber by wagon from Dry Buck, more than forty miles away, to build a handsome "candy stripe" board and batten barn for horses. The Fry place was a stage stop between Boise and Em- mett in those days, where horses were changed for the rest of the trip. Since G. W. Fry came from Iowa, homesteading this place in 1885, it will be inter- esting to try to discover how much he was influenced by Iowa barns when he built this one. /ys Many barns built from same plans The lover of old barns soon notices that many of them, aside from changes caused by weath- ering and decay, are exactly alike in design. If all in one neighborhood, there is the possibility that a group of barns is the work of one master carpenter who built in a distinctive fashion from his own favorite specifications and plans. It is also possible that the barns of a neighborhood are alike because of a shared tradi- tion. Barns built by the Finnish settlers of Long Valley are an example of that kind. In the early years of the 20th century, however, the similarity of hundreds of barns is due to their having been built from the same set of plans. These were often available from agricultur- al colleges and their extension services, the mission of which was to help farmers build effi- cient and economical barns and outbuildings for their particular kind of operation. There are plans for dairy barns, horse barns, and all-purpose family barns, as well as hog houses, chicken houses, and grain stor- age bins. The Radford Architectural Co. of Chicago, a private supplier of barn plans, flourished shortly af- ter the turn of the century. In the preface of his "Practical Barn Plans and All Kinds of Farm Buildings," published in 1908, Charles A. Radford writes "It is just as easy to secure good plans as to build after the ideas prevailing in the neighborhood, probably advanced by some car - Arthur Hart penter who has had little or no experience outside of his own town." Having knocked the chief competitors among coun- try barn builders, Radford pro- ceeds to the consideration of what is essential in a good barn. He lists drainage, foundation, ventilation, and economy as of greatest importance, but also says that his firm "does not countenance the building of un- sightly houses or outbuildings." Sample views in the Radford book typically include two ele- vations and floor plans. Com- plete blueprints could be or- dered for from $5 to $35, for structures given such labels as "cheap horse barn" or "preten- tious stock barn." What strikes the reader of Radford's catalog is that barns were designed to be remarkably efficient, and that we have seen some of these very buildings on farms across Idaho. Arthur Hart is director emeritus of the Idaho Historical Society. His column appears Mondays. Write to him in care of The States- man, P.O. Box 40, Boise, ID 83707. e� f, / 9 7 S foe. Qf 3 't-?1 f s 1. Stuart Aiken's barn became a (land- mark on the Salmon River. Built before 1920. Not more than 20 feet off Highway 95 south, of Riggins. kol DS Idahoans a half century ago didn't have the leisure time to engage in the usual forms of artistic expression; they were too busy making a living. Instead, they expressed themselves through their work and their architecture. Shown on these pages is a variety of barns found in central Idaho. All of them, with one exception, were built before 1920. Though different in design, they were all built to accomodate horses on the ground level and hay in the lofts. The builders, in an era pre -dating pre-fab buildings, obviously built their barns to satisfy their own needs, tastes and Finan- cial conditions. What resulted is an eye - pleasing landscape that tantalizes the imagination of some to yearn for an earlier time. 2. Dale Coreill's Dutch -style barn in Indian Valley. Built by his grandfather in 1916. The self-supporting roof allows maximum hay storage. Dimensions: 30' wide by 40' long; 28' to eaves. The car- penter, a 64-year-old man named Tucker, danced jigs on the rafters while building the barn. y 3: The A.O. Huntley bam on the Speropulos Ranch near Cuprum. This barn, oyez' 100 feet long, was originally built VC be a way station. Built between 1905 and 1910. • /97,9' 5: Merrel Childers barn north of Council. rA common style in Adams County. Paul Phillips of Council remembers the barn being there in 1919. �O_qF �Z f 3 Rz e 4. A hip -roof barn on John Klement's place north of Grangeville. Sits on a rock :and mortar foundation. The roof style, or hip, makes roof self-supporting. Built before 1920. ),vf9it Pe-'ry 6. A log bam north of Donnelly built by Bill Ax in the 1940's. Logs were hauled from Paddy Flat. Barn was designed to be open so cattle could move in and out freely. Ax was never able to complete the structure. 7. Rex Towell's barn and silos in Middle Valley west of Midvale. The silos were built before 1920 and are still in use. They are made of 2x4s laid flat. The silos are shaped like octogons. 8. Barn and silo on the Mike Fox ranch ear Cambridge. Silo was built around 920. The barn followed piecemeal later. ilo resembles castle tawer. •.e 4 3 o f 3 1-4 p_c pressive landmark on the rug- ged road to Hells Canyon until it was destroyed by fire in the early 1930's. The Huntley mansion was located on property known to- day as the Speropulos Ranch. The mansion is gone but a- nother landmark remains. A huge barn still stands. Like the house it was built sometime between 1905 and 1910. The story goes that "Brother Jim", a negro, who migrated to the Seven Devils after the Civil War, built the impressive struc- ture, or perhaps had a hand at engineering it. The only expla- nation for its impressive size, over 100 feet long and 40 feet high, is that Huntley ran a way station and needed a building large enough to accomodate many horses. Huntley later went broke; his dreams gener- ally outdistanced his finances. From an engineering standpoint the barn is an impressive structure. The big barn is a reminder of Huntley's ambitions in the Seven Devils.