I thought this was kind of interesting:

http://ohiobarns.osu.edu/

 

Here's an article from the 5/5/06 Mount Vernon News about their first winner of the Best Barn Award, 2006.  (Sorry, the website won't let me right-click and get the image link.  You should be able to see it if you click on the story link.)

 

Cassell barn wins Best Barn Award  

By George Breithaupt, News Staff Writer

06:05 PM, Friday, May 05, 2006

 

MOUNT VERNON — Barns are the backbone of any farm.  They are all-in-one structures that house livestock, equipment, tools, feed, fertilizer and just about anything else that will fit. Barns are more than utilitarian, though.  They are the symbol of an industry that feeds the country and the world.  They are a part of America’s heritage — and they are disappearing fast.

 

Of course, there are still structures called barns, large buildings serving pretty much the same purpose as the traditional structures that come to mind when one thinks of the word barn. But they are more like large sheds, and do not have the character or the architectural interest of the barns of grandfather’s time.

 

A group called Friends of Ohio Barns hopes to halt the decline of the traditional barn by helping to save and restore them, and encourage stewardship of the traditional barns still in existence in Ohio.  The Cassell family barn on Cassell Road was awarded one of two Best Barn Awards by the Friends of Ohio Barns.  The barn has been in the Cassell family for 171 years.

 

MORE: http://www.mountvernonnews.com/local/06/05/06/barn.html

 

Here's the image:

 

 

Very cool...their website rocks, but it's $40/year to be a member...I'd rejoin the Ohio Historical Society first, but Friends of Ohio Barns still looks quite cool...

This is somewhat related.  From the 8/6/06 Salem News:

 

 

Barns project coordinator hope residents get the picture

By ELIZABETH EWING / Salem News staff writer

 

For some people, an old barn perched beside a winding country road may be just another part of the rural scenery, but for Jan Douglass the buildings are an important, and increasingly endangered, symbol of the county's agricultural heritage.

 

Born and raised on a farm in Franklin County, Douglass said her love affair with barns has been a part of her life for a long time. She remembers helping her father move a barn half a mile up the road, jacking it up, digging footers, and laying block, and speculates that this intimate knowledge of their construction may be part of the reason she feels so attached to them.

 

MORE: http://salemnews.net/news/story/086202006_new03profile.asp

 

Here's another cool looking barn that's got kind of a Dutch Colonial look:

 

PHOTO: The Spring Mill Furniture Barn in Mansfield was named Barn of the Year by the Friends of the Ohio Barns. Below, owner Rod Stober shows the unusual ribbed ceiling design.  T-F photos by Lisa Miller

 

Barn named Ohio's best

By Lisa Miller

T-F staff

 

MANSFIELD -- Rod Stober wasn't born in a barn, but he's been making a living in one.  More than four decades after his parents decided to literally bank on the barn, the Spring Mill Furniture Barn was named "Barn of the Year" by the Friends of the Ohio Barns.

 

"It's just kind of neat," Stober said of the building chock full of furniture amid yellow pine beams, a silo and double-thick floors. Couches, nightstands and coffee tables now sit where cows once were milked. Billiard tables are for sale in the former blacksmith area.

 

Friends of the Ohio Barns President Tim Mason goes beyond "neat." He calls "incredible" the dairy barn that Mansfield industrialist George W. Henne had built in 1916, reportedly at a cost of $40,000. "We set the standards pretty high with this one," he said.  Twenty-three barns were nominated for the honor, with the local structure winning in the adaptive use category.

 

MORE: http://www.bucyrustelegraphforum.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060626/NEWS01/606260310/1002/rss01

 

This stuff is fantastic.

 

Though I will say, seeing a parking lot right next to the barn just destroys the look, at least for me...I'd prefer to judge the barns in context...but hey, I ain't the one dedicating my time and energy to the project, so who am I to bitch?

 

yeah this fine fine fine. i dont mind the context of the furniture barn so much as i appreciate the reuse. at least it means someone cares and is taking care of these historical structures, even if not in their original usage.

 

Resthaven Barn may be restored

BY STEVE KEMME | [email protected]

January 11, 2007

 

PHOTO: Resthaven Barn in Mariemont

Enquirer File

 

MARIEMONT – The village has signed a letter of intent to sell the historic Resthaven Barn to the Women’s Art Club of Cincinnati for $50,000.  The sale gives the arts club, now based at the Pendleton Arts Center in Over-the-Rhine, the ability to apply for grants to restore the building and to save it from possible demolition.  The estimated cost of restoration is $1 million.

 

According to the terms of the sale, the club has to show within 90 days that it has the finances to restore the building, which dates to the founding of Mariemont in the 1920s and was the original home of the Lindner family’s dairy business, which grew into United Dairy Farmers.  The barn had served as Mariemont’s maintenance building until a year ago, when the village moved its maintenance vehicles to a new building in an industrial park near Old Wooster Pike.

 

MORE: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070111/NEWS01/301110013

Historians actually bothered to identify barn types all around Ohio.  They cataloged the locations of different types of barns and used the data to determine which ethnic groups had originally settled the different parts of Ohio. 

 

(your history-nerd fact for the day)

Lindners donate $500K for barn

UDF grew from building to be restored

BY STEVE KEMME | [email protected]

January 24, 2007

 

MARIEMONT - Cincinnati financier Carl H. Lindner and his family have donated $500,000 for the restoration of the historic Resthaven Barn, an architectural relic here.

 

As boys, Lindner and his two brothers, Robert and Richard, helped their father, Carl Sr., operate the Quality Milk Co. from the barn, which was built during Mariemont's founding in the 1920s.  That small company grew into United Dairy Farmers.  The Lindner donation to the art club's foundation ensures that the barn will avoid demolition and will become the new home of the Women's Art Club of Cincinnati.

 

Carl Lindner said through a spokeswoman that he made the donation because of his family's past ties to the historic structure.

 

MORE: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070124/NEWS01/701240340/1056/COL02

OLD HOUSE HANDYMAN

Barns could be endangered species in Ohio

Sunday, February 18, 2007

ALAN MILLER

 

They’re disappearing day by day.  Some decay slowly, taking years to melt into a heap.  Others go quickly, succumbing to fire, wind or a mighty machine.  They are the once-ubiquitous barns that dotted Ohio and reminded us of our state’s agrarian roots at almost every turn in the road.  Ohio has lost thousands of them, and more fall every day.

 

A growing number of contractors, consultants and preservationists are helping farmers come up with new ways to use old barns.  Among those is Ann Christy, an associate professor in the College of Food, Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Ohio State University.  Beyond saving history, economic reasons exist to rehab old barns, said Christy, who is with the OSU Extension, which is involved with the Ohio Barn Again! program.

 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation established the Barn Again! program 20 years ago to create awareness about the loss of barns, to provide resources to farmers and to honor those who preserve barns.  Visit www.agriculture.com for details about the national program.  And for information about the Ohio program, visit www.ohiohistory.org/resource/histpres/toolbox/barnagain.html.

 

MORE: http://dispatch.com/homegarden/homegarden.php?story=dispatch/2007/02/18/20070218-I1-01.html

Cultural geographer Hubert Wilhelm (who used to teach at OU, he's emeritus now) did a series of videos on Ohio cultural geography, and discusses barns quite a bit in his videos.

 

One is even entitled "The Barn Builders"

 

 

Explore the landscape with Hubert Wilhelm as he tells the fascinating story of the Pennsylvanians who settled in Ohio in the 19th century.  Wilhelm's journey into the past takes him along the pioneer road, Zane's Trace, where he discovers the distinctive Pennsylvania barns, houses, towns, and cemeteries. (50-minute VHS cassette, $25)

 

Shot on location in Fairfield, Perry and Pickaway counties, Ohio; and Berks, Cumberland and Franklin counties, Pennsylvania. Written, directed, and edited by David Mould. Photographed by Ann Alter.

 

 

link

 

(he has one on the Virginians, too...Log Cabins and Castles, Virginia Settlers in Ohio

 

"...Shot on location in Adams, Brown, Gallia, Highland, Jackson, Meigs, Mercer, Miami, Pike and Ross counties, Ohio; Albemarle, Charlotte, Goochland and Madison counties, Virginia; and Braxton County, West Virginia. Written, directed and edited by David Mould. Photographed by Ann Alter"

 

"The companion Log Cabins & Castles Study Guide ($7.00) is illustrated with photographs, sketches, maps and tables, and covers: - Southern Settlement in Ohio - Pioneer Routes Virginia Land Grants - Land Divisions - Southern Farming in Ohio - Log Construction - The Virginia I House - The Southern Bam - Smoke Houses & Root Cellars - Southern Town Plats Virginia Names & Places Religious Traditions - Exercises for Reading the Landscape"

 

Muhlhauser Barn to be rustic shelter

Township will spend $1.6 million to rebuild it in a park

BY JESSICA BROWN | [email protected]

March 1, 2007

 

WEST CHESTER TWP. - This Butler County township will spend $1.6 million to rebuild a historic barn.  Township trustees decided it's worth the money because the 1800s-era Muhlhauser Barn is beloved by many.  It's a piece of township history, leaders say.

 

The barn will be re-erected in Beckett Park and will become an enclosed rustic shelter suitable for reunions, receptions and community events.  Construction is expected to start by the end of March and end in October.

 

The structure used to be a barley barn for the Muhlhauser-Windisch Brewing Co. It was donated by the Muhlhauser family to the township in 2002.  The family paid to dismantle the barn and the pieces were moved to Beckett Park and stored under a tarp for the next four years. 

 

To view plans for the barn, visit: http://www.westchesteroh.org/parksandrec/parks/index.html#beckett

 

MORE: http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070301/NEWS01/703010382/1056/COL02

Old structures have saving grace

Salvagers find new use in parts or in whole

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Brian Albrecht, Plain Dealer Reporter

 

Chester Township -- As nails groaned free and fell in a rain of rusted steel, the weathered barn siding rippled in the wind like a wooden skirt, revealing tufts of hay, feathers and spider webs clinging to beams the size of whale bones.

 

Tom Adams hammered a 1920s-vintage nail-pulling tool -- appropriate for work on this sagging survivor of early Western Reserve history -- to carefully free old boards that could become someone's time-worn floors or walls someday.

 

The barn's beams and posts, hand-hewn in the early 1800s, will be re-assembled into a house for a client in Portage County who shares Adams' interest in preserving the architectural heritage of our ancestors.

 

MORE: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/geauga/117636705963730.xml&coll=2&thispage=2

From the 3/31/07 Ashland Times-Gazette:

 

PHOTO: People on the barn tour approach Tom and Diane Reed's barn on Township Road 1255 during the Friends of Ohio Barns barn tour in Ashland and Richland counties.  Photo By Tom E. Puskar

 

A glimpse of farm history

Friends of Ohio Barns tour rolls through county

By JARRED OPATZ

T-G Special Projects Editor

 

Some people wanted to learn how to work on barns.  Others wanted to bring awareness to Ohio barns to help preserve them.  And a few others had barns on the tour and wanted to learn more about them and other barns.  While there were several reasons people took part in Friday's Friends of Ohio Barns barn tour in Ashland and Richland counties, there was one thing the nearly 100 people on the tour had in common -- some kind of interest in barns.

 

The barn tour kicked off FOB's Ohio Barn Conference VIII, which continues today with demonstrations, speakers and a banquet at the Holiday Inn in Mansfield, and wraps up Sunday morning with a breakfast at Malabar Farm.  The breakfast will include a display of the 1,400-plus photos from the Ashland County Barns and Rural Heritage Society's 2003 barn survey.

 

MORE: http://www.times-gazette.com/news/article/1793902

From the 4/2/07 Ashland Times-Gazette:

 

PHOTO: Rudy Christian, left, points to the beams supporting the timberframe barn at Malabar Farm Sunday. Christian is on the board of directors for Friends of Ohio Barns, which had its annual conference in Richland and Ashland counties this weekend.  Photo By Times-Gazette photo/Liz A. Hosfeld

 

PHOTO: Some people participating in the weekend's Friends of Ohio Barns annual barn conference talk Sunday in the main barn at Malabar Farm where photos of the Ashland County Rural Heritage Society's 2003 barn survey were displayed behind them. About 100 people from across Ohio and a few other states took part in the conference, which included a barn tour, speakers and workshops in Ashland and Richland counties.  Photo By Times-Gazette photo/Liz A. Hosfeld

 

Celebrating barns

Barn conference a success in area

By IRV OSLIN

T-G Staff Writer

 

LUCAS -- The Japanese disassemble and reassemble thousand-year-old timber frame barns not to preserve them, but to preserve the knowledge of how they are made, according to Rudy Christian.  It was for that reason Christian and about 100 others gathered this weekend at Malabar Farm for the eighth annual Ohio Barn Conference.

 

The three-day conference wrapped up Sunday with breakfast at the farm and educational sessions, including Christian's talk on barn restoration.  Christian described the 2002 restoration project he spearheaded on Malabar's Working Farm Barn.  He pointed out various features of the 19th century barn, which had evolved from a building used to store hay pitched by hand to a bank barn.

 

The latter was typical for this region.  The design allows for keeping livestock in the lower level and storing hay and grain in the upper part.  Sunday's activities also included a talk by Timothy G. Anderson on the types of barns found in the northern, central and southern regions of Ohio.

 

MORE: http://www.times-gazette.com/news/article/1800241

 

I had a conversation with a college student who is doing an internship with the Ohio chapter of the American Farmland Trust.  He is trying to document all of Ohio's bi-centennial barns with photographs and told me that several of them have already been painted over or torn down.

 

Sad.

Old barn becomes reception hall

BY JOHN HORTON & SARAH CRUMP | CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

July 27, 2007

 

PHOTO: Newlyweds Katy and Tony Brent stole a kiss before they cut the cake in the refurbished Whiting barn.

JOHN KUNTZ/Plain Dealer

 

NEWBURY - It started long ago, a little fatherly teasing tossed around the family's farmhouse: "Katy," Dan Whiting used to tell his only daughter, "we're going to dance in the barn at your wedding."  The little blond-haired girl would scrunch up her nose at the mere notion.  Celebrate her day - the day - in that big old building with the unmistakable whiff of dairy cows?  Oh, no. Not a chance.  Whiting shared that story over and over the evening of July 14 - searching, it seemed, for how it ever came true.

 

For under the stars that night at Geauga County's Sunrise Farm, between a sweet-smelling apple orchard and just-sprouting pumpkin patch, more than 250 well-dressed guests plucked table assignments off a clothesline strung across the barn's windows, and packed into that aged cow house to toast Katy and her husband of several hours, Tony Brent.

 

 

That's a great story...

 

Barn's ready to party

It was a long road; now structure starts new life

BY AMBER ELLIS | CINCINNATI ENQUIRER

March 28, 2008

 

WEST CHESTER - The historic Muhlhauser Barn, a restored timber-frame structure that links West Chester to Cincinnati's brewing past, officially opens next month - after several years of debate and planning to return the building to its original state.  "Good things take time," said Rick Muhlhauser, who will attend the formal unveiling of his family's barn Sunday with a handful of other relatives.

 

Once used for the family business, the rustic building, constructed in 1881, has been converted to a rental facility. And so far, township officials say they've lined up everything from a surprise party and sweet-16 bash to business meetings and fall wedding receptions.

 

 

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ohbarns

Old barns get new attention

As barns fade from the rural American landscape, efforts are being made to preserve them.

By Sarah More McCann | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 2, 2008 edition

 

The fieldstone barn started to crack in the 1990s, and when residents of Chase, Wis., (pop. 2,082) had the opportunity to collectively purchase and restore the 1903 building – one of only a handful of stone barns left in the state – they jumped at the opportunity.  The town obtained a loan from the local bank to buy the barn and lot for $150,000 in 2007, and since then has been searching for additional public and private money to help pay for some $465,000 worth of necessary repairs, says Kristin Kolkowski, who's active in the effort. 

 

Far from unusual, the project represents a growing national trend to identify and preserve these rural icons.  Old barns are rapidly disappearing from the nation's landscape: As few as 2 million may be left, down from 6 million in the 1930s.  And with every downed barn, bits of the nation's story are lost.

 

Find this article at:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0902/p17s01-lihc.html 

 

Old House Handyman | Alan Miller commentary:

Our barns deserve to be saved or reused

Sunday, November 14, 2010  02:58 AM

The Columbus Dispatch

 

With Ohio's rolling farmland and agrarian past, it's not surprising that a 2007 census counted 33,762 barns in the state.

 

But I'm taking bets on how many will have disappeared when the next census is done in a little more than a year.

 

I expect the count will drop by thousands in Ohio alone.

 

Full story at: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/home_garden/stories/2010/11/14/our-barns-deserve-to-be-saved-or-reused.html?sid=101