Thinking About Old Red Barns

  Even in old age my dad kept active with interesting things. One of his hobbies entailed driving around the countryside taking pictures of old buildings and pasting them into a scrapbook. I took it off the shelf recently and started paging through it to see where he pointed his camera. Pictures taken in small towns and farms located in his comfort zone fill the pages. Some of the sites have since disappeared but remain captured on these prints, including red barns. 

Large roofs on red barns have been neglected. Wind, hail, ice, and a hot sun all took their toll on them. The large square footage on the roof can be translated to dollars, a lot of dollars, therefore they were neglected. The roof became swaybacked, windows broke, rain and snow started rotting the studs, and in time the winds and snowloads started weighing them down. Every time one collapses, it marks a lamentable passage.

At one time when quarter and half-section farms were common, a person could look out and spot a number of barns in all shapes and sizes outlined on the horizon. Having the sensibilities of growing up on the small half-section farm, I am now aware of their passing.

Our barn featured sliding doors on both ends and was big enough for our little John Deere “B” to pass through. In cold weather that little tractor spent the nights in it staying warmed by the heat of the milk cows and then starting easily in the morning. At milking time our sixteen milk cows stood eating feed at their stanchions regularly relieving themselves into the gutters behind them. The gutters were always full or so it seemed, and the tractor could pull the spreader through the alley for us to load manure into the spreader.

Red paint was often chosen to cover the barns and outbuildings, and in the light of a sunny day a reminder of it can still be seen clinging to parts of the wood on a collapsed building. It must have been an old wives’ tale that declared red should be used so cows could find their way home. We know that wasn’t right because now cattle are known to be color blind. I guess the same caution no longer applies to wearing red around a bull. It just doesn’t matter to him what color you wear if he doesn’t like you.

They used the color red for an expedient reason, not a stylistic one. Red paint was cheap. Linseed oil worked as a sealant. Used alone it naturally turned to a red hue. Adding lime, milk, and the humble product of rust added to the redness. If some blood from a newly slaughtered animal was added to the mixture, it turned a darker burnt red that stood weathering. I’ve never forgotten the time when we, a custom combine crew, drove away from Lake City, Kansas. We passed a Case tractor pulling a three bottom plow that turned reddish soil to the sun. It possessed a high content of iron oxide. It was rusty.

Cupolas straddling the peak of a roof served a purpose of acting as a ventilator for moisture to escape, whether from the cows or their body wastes or from hay drying in the haymow. The knowledge of one other use exists in our family lore when my great-grandpa having knowledge of a possible raid on his still hid it in his barn’s cupola. My dad reminisced about a silver dollar he found as a boy by the barn at Nome and joked it could have dropped from the pocket of someone who came shopping for moonshine. We’ll never know. Maybe one day an archaeologist will dig in spots like that and find other treasures buried beneath the surface.

In so many ways the barn stood as a center of activity in a farmyard. Some of us remember cats at milking time sitting close and meow-begging a squirt of milk. Our barn also housed a team of horses, pens of pigs and sheep, and always a stray hen or two wandering through.

Dusty haymows were more than storage for hay. Through the winter as hay had been poked down to the cows, a young man could sweep the floor beneath a basketball hoop and shoot away.We hollowed out caves in loose hay or piled bales to create private little hide-a-ways. If we wondered where the cat hid her newborn litter, we could often find them tucked away up there. And how about those barn dances. I’ve been to a few in a haymow. Barns were important.

Moving Freight

 Without elaborating, the newspaper in Sheldon printed a simple statement in their first issue declaring, “Prairie schooners are passing westward almost everyday.” It’s fun to imagine those ox, mule, or horse drawn white canvas topped wagons moving across the tall grass prairie singly or with others. At the end of their journey they found places to settle and build farms and communities. Rails had only begun lacing the countryside, so  how did settlers come by the goods they needed? They depended on those freight hauling wagons drawn by oxen, mules, and horses  that brought them here in the first place. 

A great story came out of Bismarck on the Missouri River that illustrates the movement of freight to satisfy the wants and needs of settlers. Prior to the arrival of the Northern Pacific in 1873, a settlement had sprouted and residents wanted cooked food to fill their stomachs. Iron stoves could not be purchased. Those stoves were manufactured in Cleveland, Ohio, but no direct route existed. A new stove took quite a journey to reach Bismarck. 

At a Cleveland dock on the Ohio River stoves were loaded on a steamboat and rode southwesterly until reaching Cairo, Illinois where that river converged with the Mississippi River. Then the stove hauling steamboat headed mostly northward until reaching St. Louis, Missouri. Here it reached its confluence with the Missouri River. A long trip still awaited, but the Missouri River would take them to Bismarck and beyond with that desired cargo. 

A person ordering a stove had to be very patient because the trip took some time. I can’t guess, but I do know some of that freight never made it. While traveling during one of our road trips we visited a museum near Kansas City that paid tribute to a sunken steamboat named Arabia. After striking a submerged object in the river it sank in 1856, 169 years ago. Through the years the river changed course and skirted the site of the wreck, silt and dirt covered it over, and then in 1988 it was rediscovered and dug up in a farmer’s field.

Many goods intended for settlers never made it. Over two hundred tons of material have been salvaged, and it is probable more might still be buried. Exhibits in the Arabia Museum include a wide range of salvaged goods, including lamps, dishes, silverware, cookware, firearms, shoes, buttons, hammers, saws, and yes, stoves. A great narrative with plenty of pictures can be found by searching for the Arabia wreck on the internet.

River and railroad traffic could only supply some of the demand. Hauling goods and material still required wagons pulled by oxen, mules, and horses. In 1863, General Sibley entered the territory with about 3,300 uniformed men. Their intent was to punish the Indians for their undesired behavior in the Minnesota Uprising. Imagine the army’s appetite at the end of a long marching day. To satisfy their hunger 225 mule-drawn wagons bearing foodstuffs and material plus a herd of cattle accompanied the army. The men who drove the mule teams became known as teamsters.

At least one of the teamsters who drove mule teams returned to make his home in the area. In the old Owego Church cemetery I spotted a lonely military gravestone standing by itself. One of the words engraved on it identified him as a “Wagoner.” The inscription identified the man as James M. Kinney, Wagoner, Co. B, 10 Minn. Inf. I have found a roster of these men and Kinney’s name is included. He earned a bit of fame when the editor of the Sheldon noted how he had walked sixteen miles through the snow into town to catch the next day’s westbound train to Lisbon where he wanted to stay at the soldier’s home. He entertained some of the boys that evening telling them about his experiences.

Another teamster living in the area is buried in the Sheldon cemetery. John T. Hickey wound up driving a supply wagon at a famous historical event known as Custer’s Last Stand. The headline of the local paper referred to him as Reno’s freighter. My reading of history tells me that Custer rode into the area and thought he would hit the Indian encampment at three different points. Major Reno led the detachment to which Hickey was assigned.  I’d like to have been in the presence of the man when he “often related with much vividness the stirring times of encounters with the savage Indian tribes that roamed over the state.” When he brought his family to Sheldon to settle he managed a large livery stable across from the NP depot.

Today we only need to drive along an interstate highway to see multitudes of semi-trucks hauling goods from place to place. And who drives them? Teamsters. A large union represents their membership, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.