Barns!

The prelude to my exploration of the Western National Parks is a quick run across country. Although originally anticipated as a leisurely exploration of Kentucky – a state I had never visited – my schedule for the first part of the tour had been compressed by the need to reach a meeting point where my son Dan and his wife Betsy will join me. As a result, I decided to go directly to Denver via Route 80, the Interstate that runs across the middle of the county from New York to San Francisco. This would allow an extra three days to spend exploring the parks.

Although I had anticipated a grueling, generally uninteresting but occasionally scenic trip, I got totally distracted by the barns. Much of the territory through which I passed was rural, beginning with a short cut across the western corner of the Southern Tier of New York State. Real working farm-country rural, not the rural with which I am most familiar in New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the Union. And the thing that impressed me most of all were the regional curiosities of the older barns.

I first noticed certain anomalies among the barns in western NYS. Yes, many were the archetypical gambrel-roofed frame barns with round silos, painted the familiar “barn red.” But then there was one with a rectangular appendages mounted on the side of the silo, from ground to the roof. Then another had a small cabin mounted on top of the silo, with a gambrel roof to match the main barn, and joined to it by a covered walkway. That got my attention. Questions jumped to mind about what possible reason would have cause some taciturn farmer to build this folly. A minor amusement, trying to figure that out. Something to pass the time.

Dropping down into Eastern Ohio from NYS was a less interesting ride, and by the time I reached Cleveland area, where I stayed with Betsy's parents (thanks for the kind hospitality!), the scenery offered more typical highway fare. The next day, however, the road passed through the farmland of western Ohio, where substantial farms stretched for hundreds of acres along the highway. Tidy buildings, fields planted with crops in neat rows. And suddenly I noticed that, unlike the red barns of upstate NY or the green barns of New England – most of these barns seemed to be painted white. In fact, most of the buildings on the farm were white. Gleaming, pristine white. Open doors were black rectangles against those blindingly stark walls. Now why, I asked myself, would anyone in their right mind paint a barn white? Doesn't it get dirty? Don't you lose site of the farm when it snows? Do you have to see it more clearly from a distance in the summer? Is white paint less expensive than red or green?

And then there were the roofs. Gradually, the typical gambrel roof gave way to pitched roofs. White barns with pitched roofs. Fascinating. Not all barns, of course, had pitched roofs. And not all were white, but such types were plentiful, nonetheless.

As I skirted the populous south end of Lake Michigan – Gary, Indiana, to Joliet, Illinois – farms gave way to industrial parks, shopping centers, and tract houses. But soon I was back in farm country again. Along both sides of the highway from north central Illinois through the western part of the state were even larger-scaled farms set among rolling fields. We were beginning to penetrate more deeply into corn territory. Fields of waist-high corn were clearly recovering from some heavy rains that had left small ponds in the midst of some of the fields. And here I noticed another regional quirk in barn construction.

Barns in northwestern Illinois have a small frame monitor on the ridge of the barn, which looks like a miniature of the barn it sits on. If the barn has a pitched roof, then the monitor has a pitched roof. If the main roof is a gambrel, then the roof of the monitor is a gambrel. I even saw a Gothic barn from the early 20^th Century with a Gothic-roofed monitor. Sometimes the ridge of the monitor is perpendicular to the main building, sometimes in the same direction.

Usually, the barn on which such a monitor sits has two large doors, one at each gable end. Often they are open, so you can see clearly through the building. The monitor also has openings or vents – often small windows, one at each side. In one instance, there was a conveyor into one of the windows from an apparatus on the ground. Sometimes there is another barn nearby that is more tightly closed.

Are the barns with monitors for grain storage? That might be the reason for the additional ventilation. Is it for livestock? If so, how does heat stay in the building in winter? Was this form a vernacular version of what is now the ubiquitous round metal vents along the ridge lines of barns? Unfortunately, these questions probably will not be answered while en route. Maybe later. The best I can do at this point is take some photos as I drive past, in an effort to keep the questions alive.