Barberton is famous for two things: chicken and barns. Both are good winter destinations.

 

The Anna Dean Farm--now largely developed--was once a major showpiece, including dozens of ornate barns and a massive mansion that makes Stan Hywet look like a guesthouse.

 

Anna Dean Farm map:

http://www.annadeanfarm.com/map2.htm

 

Mansion info/images:

http://www.annadeanfarm.com/adf.htm

 

Barn No. 1: http://www.annadeanfarm.com/farmbuildings/cattle1.htm

 

 

 

 

 

Brooder Barn: http://www.annadeanfarm.com/farmbuildings/brooder.htm

 

 

Piggery: http://www.annadeanfarm.com/farmbuildings/piggery.htm

 

 

 

Creamery: http://www.annadeanfarm.com/farmbuildings/creamery.htm

 

Heating House: http://www.annadeanfarm.com/farmbuildings/heating.htm

 

 

Feed Barn: http://www.annadeanfarm.com/farmbuildings/feedbarn.htm

& Poultry Manager's Office: http://www.annadeanfarm.com/farmbuildings/poultry2.htm

 

New development on the farm site in "Barber" style:

 

 

 

Demolished Barn No. 2: http://www.annadeanfarm.com/farmbuildings/cattle2.htm

 

Demolished Barn No. 3: http://www.annadeanfarm.com/farmbuildings/cattle3.htm

 

But the real attraction in Barberton is the chicken. Belgrade Gardens (1933) and Whitehouse Chicken (1942) might be the most well-known, but there are others.

 

The traditional Barberton chicken dinner is 4 pieces of chicken, cole slaw, hot sauce (rice & tomato mixture), and fries

the key to barberton chicken is the unusual cuts and that it's fried in lard. so....health food! it was originally developed and promoted by serbian immigrants. ya gotta love real localized specialties like this, they are getting so rare and fading away.

Now I'm hungry.

LOVED the chicken, hated the prepackaged sauce.

...hated the prepackaged sauce.

 

That is because you are supposed to dip your chicken in the famous hot sauce. The Serbians did not use honey mustard.

The demolition of the O. C. Barber mansion was quite possibly the most ill-advised, shortsighted and downright boneheaded act in Barberton's history. It was by every account more grand than Stan Hywet Hall, and almost certainly would have helped Barberton to remake itself as a tourist destination at the very least throughout the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st. The extent of the cultural and economic void it left in is wake and the impact of this on the course of the city of Barberton's development is incalculable.

 

On the bright side, at least the city's reputation for its unique flavor of chicken continues to endure.  :-)

^Do you know how the mansion came to be demolished?

I can't seem to find the exact details on the historical society's site, but I always understood it to be the result of poor upkeep and costs in later years that led to extensive structural damage and ultimately condemnation by the City of Barberton in 1965. There wasn't much interest or money then around for fixing up and restoring the old. People were more interested in progress as marked throughout the 60s and 70s by wiping out whole structures and swaths of communities to build new and supposedly "better" in their place... except that Barberton didn't actually get around to accomplishing much of that in the wake of the mansion until far more recently, and then not anywhere near "replacement value" to what was lost.

 

The Mansion is definitely a profound and irreparable cultural and historical loss for Barberton as well as for Greater Akron. For comparison and imagery, the equivalent in Akron proper would have been the demolition of Stan Hywet during the same period. How much has the city benefited from its presence and local economic contributions through tourism and events held there over the ensuing decades? How many weddings, plays and other special events might the Barber Mansion have hosted in Barberton over the past 40+ years?