Iconic big, red barn's influence on rural America shrinking
Sioux City Journal | By Nick Hytrek, nhytrek@siouxcityjournal.com | June 30, 2012
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KINGSLEY, Iowa | Lowell Vos stares up at the rafters, where barn swallows chirp and dart about their nests.
It's a long way up there from where he's standing, 80 feet from the lowest point. He points out 40-foot-long two-by-fours used in the roof. How the builders put this old barn together decades ago with dowel pins amazes Vos.
"As you can tell, it's standing nice and straight. They were craftsmen," Vos said. "You don't see too many like this anymore."
No, you don't.
Standing amid the lush, green corn and soybean fields along Plymouth County Road K49, Lowell and Judy Vos' big, red barn quickly catches your attention once you crest the hill just south of their place.
It stands out not only because of its size, but because of its increasing rarity. As farming has changed, so have farmers' storage needs for equipment, crops and livestock. Everything has gotten bigger. So much so that the big, red barn has become too small.
Farmers no longer milk a few cows and have horses to do the work. Tractors and combines keep getting bigger. There are other ways to store hay and grain.
The wooden barn, a symbol of rural America, is becoming obsolete. It's just as common to see one abandoned, its roof caving in and paint long gone, as one that's still in use.
"The reason they're going is the same reason you see agriculture changing -- issues of scale, issues of technology and issues of cost," said Randy Cantrell, a rural sociologist with the University of Nebraska Rural Initiative. "I'm also sure that if I'm constructing a barn today to house enormous machinery, I don't think I'll be building a Dutch-style gabled barn. I'd be building a large, steel shed."
Massive steel buildings offer more room to store the gigantic machines now used to work the land. Few farmers have milk cows, and if they do, they need far more than a dozen or so to make a profit.
When the Voses moved to their farm in 1982, they debated whether to tear down the barn. They decided a farm isn't a farm without a big, red barn.
"It's part of the house, it's part of the setting," Lowell Vos said.
That charm is what led Pam and Dave Battaglioli to save the barn on the acreage they bought near Granville, Iowa, when they moved from California 16 years ago. Built in 1933, the barn had some holes in the roof, the windows were boarded up and the doors bolted shut. Pam Battaglioli, whose parents are Northwest Iowa natives, said they decided it had to stay.
"It was just a nice, big building, and I didn't want it torn down," Pam Battaglioli said. "There's just a feeling when you go in a barn."
The Battagliolis restored their barn in 2002 and painted it red with white trim. It now houses antiques and is home to their dogs, a cat and a rabbit. They use the large, open hayloft to entertain guests.
"I think they're worth saving. Once they're gone, you're never going to rebuild one. There's a lot of history in them," said Pam, who's the O'Brien County representative for the Iowa Barn Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to the preservation of old barns.
Barns like Battaglioli's are featured on historic barn tours. Their main purpose is for show.
Lowell Vos keeps his antique tractors inside. He used to store hay in the loft when he had horses. He and his son store their big tractors and farm equipment in steel buildings elsewhere. The big, red barn isn't as useful on the modern farm.
"For big equipment nowadays, it's kind of obsolete," Vos said.
For that reason, barns will continue to disappear from the rural landscape. Cantrell said that like old cars, barns will be restored by those who are passionate about them, but the cost to maintain them is too high for most farmers, many of whom have little use for them anymore.
"From a nostalgic point of view, they're going to be missed," Cantrell said.
Not along K49 in Plymouth County. Vos said their barn will be maintained.
http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/a1/iconic-big-red-barn-s-influenc...
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Sioux City Journal | By Nick Hytrek, nhytrek@siouxcityjournal.com | June 30, 2012
|
|
KINGSLEY, Iowa | Lowell Vos stares up at the rafters, where barn swallows chirp and dart about their nests.
It's a long way up there from where he's standing, 80 feet from the lowest point. He points out 40-foot-long two-by-fours used in the roof. How the builders put this old barn together decades ago with dowel pins amazes Vos.
"As you can tell, it's standing nice and straight. They were craftsmen," Vos said. "You don't see too many like this anymore."
No, you don't.
Standing amid the lush, green corn and soybean fields along Plymouth County Road K49, Lowell and Judy Vos' big, red barn quickly catches your attention once you crest the hill just south of their place.
It stands out not only because of its size, but because of its increasing rarity. As farming has changed, so have farmers' storage needs for equipment, crops and livestock. Everything has gotten bigger. So much so that the big, red barn has become too small.
Farmers no longer milk a few cows and have horses to do the work. Tractors and combines keep getting bigger. There are other ways to store hay and grain.
The wooden barn, a symbol of rural America, is becoming obsolete. It's just as common to see one abandoned, its roof caving in and paint long gone, as one that's still in use.
"The reason they're going is the same reason you see agriculture changing -- issues of scale, issues of technology and issues of cost," said Randy Cantrell, a rural sociologist with the University of Nebraska Rural Initiative. "I'm also sure that if I'm constructing a barn today to house enormous machinery, I don't think I'll be building a Dutch-style gabled barn. I'd be building a large, steel shed."
Massive steel buildings offer more room to store the gigantic machines now used to work the land. Few farmers have milk cows, and if they do, they need far more than a dozen or so to make a profit.
When the Voses moved to their farm in 1982, they debated whether to tear down the barn. They decided a farm isn't a farm without a big, red barn.
"It's part of the house, it's part of the setting," Lowell Vos said.
That charm is what led Pam and Dave Battaglioli to save the barn on the acreage they bought near Granville, Iowa, when they moved from California 16 years ago. Built in 1933, the barn had some holes in the roof, the windows were boarded up and the doors bolted shut. Pam Battaglioli, whose parents are Northwest Iowa natives, said they decided it had to stay.
"It was just a nice, big building, and I didn't want it torn down," Pam Battaglioli said. "There's just a feeling when you go in a barn."
The Battagliolis restored their barn in 2002 and painted it red with white trim. It now houses antiques and is home to their dogs, a cat and a rabbit. They use the large, open hayloft to entertain guests.
"I think they're worth saving. Once they're gone, you're never going to rebuild one. There's a lot of history in them," said Pam, who's the O'Brien County representative for the Iowa Barn Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to the preservation of old barns.
Barns like Battaglioli's are featured on historic barn tours. Their main purpose is for show.
Lowell Vos keeps his antique tractors inside. He used to store hay in the loft when he had horses. He and his son store their big tractors and farm equipment in steel buildings elsewhere. The big, red barn isn't as useful on the modern farm.
"For big equipment nowadays, it's kind of obsolete," Vos said.
For that reason, barns will continue to disappear from the rural landscape. Cantrell said that like old cars, barns will be restored by those who are passionate about them, but the cost to maintain them is too high for most farmers, many of whom have little use for them anymore.
"From a nostalgic point of view, they're going to be missed," Cantrell said.
Not along K49 in Plymouth County. Vos said their barn will be maintained.
http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/local/a1/iconic-big-red-barn-s-influenc...
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