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The Endangered Barn of Ohio's Hill Country
For more than a century, barns were the most important structures in the American landscape. When more than 90 percent of the population lived on farms, the barn was the largest structure standing amid a community of outbuildings, each serving a special need that supported the farmstead. The barn was the most visible symbol of the economic health and well-being of the family and the nation.
The hewn timbers were shaped from the primeval tress that once towered over the land. The stone foundations were quarried from the exposed bedrock nearby. Put together with ingenuity and skill and representing the hopes and dreams of the farmer and his family, the barn rose out of the land and sheltered their harvest, livestock, tools, equipment and all that was important to their survival.
After serving the needs of several generations of farmers and the nation, changing tools and trends in agriculture resulted in the neglect and eventual decay of this once familiar shape. Sadly, may of these barns, built to last for centuries, have not benefited from the maintenance and upkeep their original owners anticipated they would receive. The qualities of thrift and frugality inherent in the builders of America's barns have largely been lost.
A missing piece of slate or the wind bent corner of a metal roof was expected to be repaired. However, a ride along the main highways of back roads of southeastern Ohio reveals many a barn with a roof in need of repair. Short of receiving this remedial attention, the barn begins to decline. When the roof no longer protects the posts and beams of the frame and foundation from rain and snowmelt, the fate of the barn is sealed. At length we will witness that barn returning the the land as a decaying pile of sticks and stones. With it will go more stories and more knowledge and more links to history and heritage than we can appreciate.
The silent killers of neglect and dereliction in the marginally farmable Ohio hill country are supplemented by the growing number of highways, subdivisions, shopping centers and parking lots that result in the bulldozing of farms and barns in other parts of the state. The community ritual and festivity of barn raising in the last century has given way to the unattended and disheartening barn razing of today.
To preserve the barn is to preserve a tangible part of the American heritage. To preserve the barn is to preserve our sense of place and sense of who we are, where we came from, and how we got here. The barn represents the people who built it and the way of life it supported. It represents the frugality, stewardship, and ingenuity of its former owners. Such a link with the past might yet be a guidepost along the road to economic stability as it was in days gone by.
From the writings and travels of Tom O'Grady
from The Old Barn Post, a publication of Friends of Ohio Barns, January, 2002
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