Several months ago my son Jeff gave me a book called The Old Barn Book. He knows I enjoy seeing various old barns around the country, and talking about their structural features and how they serve the workings of the farm. We have an older barn on our own farm north of Pea Ridge, and from time to time it presents crucial decision times -- do we invest in the repairs that will maintain it, or do we let it decline and deteriorate as so many old barns have done all around the country? Our big barn was built in about 1943, so in another two years it will be 75 years old. It is only three years younger than I am. I still have a few memories of seeing it in the building, including an enduring image of my Grandpa Scott Nichols high up at the peak of the roof, when only three of the rafters were in place and none of the sheet iron roofing had been nailed on. My Grandpa was either very brave or very foolhardy at that point. I have never decided just which he was.
As from time to time I page through the book that Jeff gave me, I am reminded that the types of farm barns are many, especially as one compares examples from all around the country. I tend to think of our own barn as somewhat typical of Arkansas, especially in parts of the state where livestock farming has been the norm. I think of our barn as an old-time hay barn, since the bulk of its space was designed for storing hay for the cows. But, of course, it was not just a hay barn, and not just a cow barn. It served numerous livestock purposes on the farm, providing space for milking the cows, space for horses, space for mother cows giving birth to calves, pen space for caring for young calves, space for doctoring sick animals, and space for storing grain feed for the cattle and chickens.
In comparison to the newer barns being built on livestock farms these days, the older barns tend to be much taller and more massive. This is largely because they were designed as a cover over a massive haystack, being built to shelter an entire year's hay crop in one huge pile of loose hay. In our case, the haystack began at ground level and rose to nearly the full height of the roof on a good hay year. Of course I remember a few years, back when we were still putting up hay loose, that the hay crop actually exceeded the capacity of our barn, and we would have to build some haystacks out in the open. Haystacks out in the open field do only a fair job of shedding water and preserving the hay. The outer layers of an open-air haystack deteriorate badly from the effects of the weather, which gives the reason for having a good barn to take better care of your hay.
In our part of the country, our farm barns built in the early 1900s were often built almost entirely of oak lumber, rough-sawn and unplaned, including the siding. Often these barns remained unpainted, since oak lumber does pretty well at resisting deterioration from the effects of rain and sun. Over the years of their life one sees them turning from their initial yellow, to brown, to gray, and to shades of black and gray, as the siding ages. Of course, those barns that were painted have fared better, and evidently will endure longer than those which were unpainted. Our own barn has a partner barn on a farm east of Pea Ridge which was painted, and the siding there has endured better than ours through the years. I have had to replace some of our siding, and will need to replace more if our barn is to keep on keeping on.
I love to see the old barns, even those that are in bad shape, because they represent the way of life which was carried on by our grandparents and great-grandparents who farmed the land back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Those were the days when most of the horsepower on the farm was provided by real live horses, when farm electricity was unheard of, when farm tools and implements were mostly horse powered or man powered, when cars and trucks were rare, and transportation was largely by wagon or buggy or horseback. It is still a fascination to me that although today we would hardly know what to do with ourselves without our electric lights and appliances and gadgets, would feel drastically limited if we had to do without our high-powered cars and trucks, and likely would feel devastated and isolated if we had no smart phones or tablets or iPads or other electronics, yet our ancestors nevertheless prospered reasonably well without those things, enjoyed life, raised families, and worked to build a better future for their children and grandchildren.
I have a great interest in the history of our way of life through the years, but I am not one to oppose all change. I don't necessarily want to keep things as they were. But I do like to see great old buildings endure, to be adapted to new uses, and to maintain those visible ties we have with the generations who lived before us. Methods of managing and sheltering livestock have changed, methods of storing hay have changed, methods of milking cows have changed, and the barns that reflect these changes are different from the great old-fashioned barns of a hundred years ago. But like the great old classic cars from years gone by, many of our great old farm barns stand with dignity, reflecting a sense of enduring value across the years.
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is an award-winning columnist. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 01/20/2016