May 2023 be a year of kindness, love, and generosity, and one filled with hope for a more peaceful world. The spirit of Christmas is exemplified by two postcards dating from around 1900.
The children, accompanied by their trusty dog, walk home through the snow carrying evergreen branches. St. Nicholas of the Children (a German fantasy), dressed in fancy boots and a warm coat, pulls the child Jesus on his sled to homes everywhere on a snowy Christmas Eve. No reindeer and no sliding down the chimney–just stopping at the front door to leave a few apples from his basket and to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.
Quilting is a folk art dating back several hundred years but the idea of quilt squares on barns in farming communities caught on just a few decades ago. Hundreds of interesting designs can be seen and all are meaningful to the owners.
In Iowa they became popular in the early 2000s. Grundy County introduced them in 2003 as a marketing tool to bring visitors to the county, when Highway 20 became a four-lane highway. The above barn quilt in Sioux County has a geometric design, as do most of them.
Check the website of the county of interest for photos and addresses of barns displaying quilts. The size is usually 8 ft x 8 ft, although some are 4 ft x 4 ft because of space limitations.
Pictured below are three barn quilts that Brandon Rial, an Omaha artist, designed and painted for spaces that were once windows in our garage. We call them garage quilts since we have no barn. Wednesday, December 7 was the premiere showing. Watch for another blog of more designs in weeks to come.
A three-story barn! This unusual 1890 barn was designed for hay, horses, and cattle, one on each level. Stanchions for six dairy cattle were on the ground level, along with a space for resting and loafing. Stalls for carriages and 16 horses were on the second level, with an entrance ramp on the north side (not visible) and an exit on the east. The third level was for hay, with a hay door on the east side.
Detlef David Guttau was an 1870 German immigrant, Pottawattamie County pioneer, barn builder, and California landowner. After Detlef and his wife Louise retired from farming and settled in California, their son Hugo and his wife Clara moved to this farm, followed by their son Deflef and his wife Ethel.
A memorable event was picking corn in 1946. Detlef hired six men, “cornhuskers” from Nebraska, who picked 40-bushel wagonloads, one each morning and one each afternoon. The six 26-inch-wide wagons were each pulled by two horses. He chose this method of picking corn because he thought there was too much loss with a mechanical picker he had previously used. However, the next year he bought a new one-row corn picker and retired the cornhusker idea. The name was penned as a Nebraska name, “cornhuskers.” Sound familiar?
The fourth Guttau family to live on this farm includes Gary, his wife Dee, and son Chad. The barn was in use for cattle until 2012 and it is now a home for their cats. Saving this large, aging barn required considerable effort. It was re-shingled on the south side in 1955 and the north side in the 1980s. The limestone foundation was replaced by concrete blocks in the 1980s and major structural repairs were made in the early 2000s. It was re-painted in 2019. Originally it had a large cupola.
It became a Century Farm in 1977 and will be a Heritage Farm (150 years) in 2027. The location is in Pottawattamie County at 31082 Dogwood Rd, Treynor. (2022 photo)
It was 1864 when Judge William Henry Lewis and his wife Emma arrived in Madison County. In the late 1860s he built a home, a summer kitchen, and a barn on their farm west of town, and named it Fairmount Nursery. Hundreds of varieties of trees and flowers were planted, as well as hundreds of apple trees, promoting the apple industry.
The board and batten barn was originally white, as seen in the 1871 photo below. Lewis, wearing a white shirt, is standing in the open door. (He is barely visible, resembling merely a white dot.) Not much is written about the barn but there was space for carriages as well as horses and goats. Horses and goats still live there today.
Lewis is considered to be a founding father of Winterset, as well as its mayor, county surveyor and county judge. He also erected many buildings in town, and was the superintendent when the current courthouse was being built, after the original one burned in 1875. He died in 1928 at the age of 88.
The Lewis house, pictured below, built 1867-69, is a bed and breakfast owned by Mark and Kayla Hawkins, located at 1145 West Summit. (2022 photo)
Iowa has its own draft horse history. The American Cream Draft horse was developed in the early 20th century in central Iowa and is the only breed of draft horse to originate in the United States. It has a cream-colored coat, pink skin, amber eyes, and white mane and tail.
The sale of a mare named Old Granny in 1911 in Story County marked the beginning of this unique breed. The buyer kept the foals to continue her bloodline.
The American Cream was registered as genetically separate from other draft horse breeds in 1944 and recognized by the Iowa Department of Agriculture in 1950. Draft horse numbers declined when tractors replaced horses, but with renewed interest in this breed the registry was re-activated in 1972.
It is estimated that there are about 400 in existence today. Some may be found in tourist areas pulling carriages and wagons, including Colonial Williamsburg, VA, with a few being used in farming. The horses pictured are owned by Tony Stalzer, who lives in Zearing. (2022 photo)
Munterville. Where is it? Located about six miles north of Blakesburg, it is not on most Iowa maps. A big red barn, an immigrant memorial, a Lutheran Church, and a few houses are all that remain today.
Southeast Iowa was a key area for Swedish immigration, including this village. In 1847 settlers arrived in Wapello County and established Bergholm. It was changed to Munterville in 1870 when the post office was established in recognition of Magnus Munter, a prominent community leader. The post office closed in 1905.
The Swedish Immigrant Memorial in the lawn of Munterville Lutheran Church, adjacent to the church cemetery, commemorates the settlement by Swedish immigrants. It depicts a family dressed in pioneer clothing, rather than Swedish clothing. Three flagpoles surround it: a U.S. flag, an Iowa flag, and a Swedish flag, as well as a brass plaque listing donors and memorials of former residents.
About ½ mile east of the monument is a barn, erected by an early settler, whose name is unknown today. The red barn is in excellent condition and stands out in the countryside. It was the site of the Alex Johnson Dairy that sold raw milk from the1920s-1940s. Shown is a milk bottle cap from this dairy.
The Lutheran church was an integral part of the community but unfortunately closed several years ago due to declining membership. It will be kept in good repair for years to come, fortunately, by money set aside by members and descendants. Adjacent is a large, well-kept cemetery where many immigrants and probably the builder of the barn are buried. (September 2022 photos)
Horses were power in pioneer Iowa. They kept the family farm going and the family in business. Many farmers had spares in case of need and horse-trading stories were common. The 1850 Iowa census listed over 38,000 horses, most being in the eastern and southern counties. By 1860 they numbered 175,000. In the early 1900s the number exceeded 1.5 million. Horses with enough strength to break the prairie sod, haul away logs for cabin-building, and move huge boulders resulted in importing and breeding draft horses for farm use.
Below is an ad for a Riverside Farm sale in Cass County, printed in the February 22, 1911 Breeder’s Gazette. Peter Hopley made numerous trips to Europe to buy draft horses, and the winners in international competitions were brought to America to be sold, most in foal (pregnant). Imagine the amount of feed and hay it would take for a long ocean voyage, followed by a long journey by train to Iowa. See Iowa Barns yesterday and today, page 33, for the Hopley barns and story.
William Fields and his brother in Cedar Falls, Black Hawk County, also were renowned horsemen, but their late 1880s ad was for coach horses, not just “ordinary” workhorses. See page 35 of Iowa Barns yesterday and today. A coach was classified as a four-wheeled passenger-carrying vehicle drawn by two or more horses.
Many pioneers would not have been able to buy these expensive horses, but there were many local sales where farmers could buy horses at reasonable prices. Draft horses are still bought and sold today. Check out the fall Waverly Midwest Horse Sale, October 5-7, 2022, in Waverly, Iowa. The list can be seen online.
Summer and chickens are featured in this Metropolitan Life Insurance Company advertising card given to potential customers over a century ago. Hopefully, customers would have been interested in both life insurance and chickens.
What about chickens and this barn? Originally intended for livestock, it became a home for chickens some years ago at Greg and Janet Holcomb’s farm at the edge of Martelle. See more of this barn story on page 208 in Iowa Barns yesterday and today. (May 2022
Ninety hens and 125 pullets were occupying the barn in August when we stopped by. Janet had dozens of eggs to sell and we helped the cause by buying a dozen.
One of the areas for the hens is pictured here. Inside, nesting boxes are provided with egg compartments, tilted so eggs roll down, keeping the eggs clean. Janet notes that there are hens that want to sit in the nesting boxes, so they try to retrieve the just laid egg by rolling it upwards to the nesting box. Some of them manage this feat. Then they begin incubating the egg like a good hen should. Determined hens they are, but not smart enough to know the eggs are not fertilized. (August 2022 photo)
The pullets live next door to the hens, separated by a fence. The pullets are colorful, curious, and lively. They are teenage hens and will start laying eggs at four to six months. Then there will be MORE eggs to deal with. (August 2022 photo)
The Cupola Inn near Nora Springs, featured in Iowa Barns yesterday and today, is celebrating its 25th year as a bed and breakfast.
Two years ago owners Dale and Judy Mills wondered what to do with the many barn calendars they had saved. Dale decided to install them in a former shed, calling it a Barn EyeMax exhibit. See the entrance plaza below. A structural model barn, built by a friend, was given to them to exhibit.
Installed on the outside of an adjacent building is the Barnyard Art Gallery.
The entire exhibit is a barn lover’s paradise. Breakfast is served in a small round limestone barn constructed by the Mills family. (2022 photos)
The best barn in Adams County in 1953, according to an ad for the sale of the property, was this one at the north edge of Brooks. It is still the finest barn, at least in Brooks. (2021 photo)
James and Mary Miles Flowers Dawson moved to this farm in 1870. Their sons, who were carpenters, built their large three-story home in 1903 and this barn in 1913. They also rode the train to Omaha daily for some years to work at Brandeis department store.
The barn is original except for the four large windows installed many years ago for additional light. The long row of small windows on one end and two sets of double sliding doors, each with multiple windows, are unusual features. The loft is gigantic. The barn was in use until the late 1940s, but is now the current owners’ workshop.
The town of Brooks has had four names in its history. First it was Canaan City, then Brookville, then Simpson, named after Methodist Bishop Simpson when Brooks Seminary was established. At that time, the south section of town was still called Brookville, which was confusing, so in 1871 it became Brooks, its fourth and final name. The population is 40 today.
The barn and home are remnants of the town’s history. The local public school, east of the barn, closed in 1968. The seminary, north of the barn, had a brief existence in 1859 before moving to Simpson College in Indianola.
The blog on June 26 featured the Dobbin round barn at State Center. This barn has the original round metal rack used for drying ears of corn.
The ears were attached to the rack by a clip fastened to a spike pushed into each ear. With almost 600 kernels on each ear and hundreds of ears on the rack, it would have held enough seed for the yearly planting. Really? Many farms in earlier days were small, 80 to 160 acres, with a rotation of corn, oats, alfalfa or red clover, and grassland pasture. Thus, not that many acres were dedicated just to corn each year.
How was all that corn shelled? Several contacts regarding this subject believed the ears were shelled by hand, rather than by a hand-cranked corn sheller, which would have broken some of the kernels.
A horse-drawn planter placed two or three kernels in each hill, with the hills spaced 38 inches apart in the row. The rows were also 38 inches wide. Today, single seeds are planted just six to eight inches apart, with 30-inch wide rows. Quite a difference! Notice how close each stalk is to its neighbor in the field pictured below. (2021 photo)
A new look! This Marshall County barn, built on the farm of Henry and Lillian Dobbin in 1919 and now owned by Christy Dobbin Chambers and her husband Jon, has undergone a major renovation.
In 2019-20, parts of the ring that had supported the roof were replaced. The photo below shows the ring, with new sections in lighter-colored wood.
It was reshingled in the spring of 2021, then repainted. When the photo at the top was taken in late 2021, minor window repairs and painting of the small section below the cupola roof were all that was needed to complete the project. It was an expensive undertaking, paid for in part by a grant from the Iowa Barn Foundation. Check page 132 of Iowa Barns yesterday and today for a more extensive history.
The floor surrounding the silo, where the dairy cow stanchions and horse stalls are located, is unique. It consists of uniformly spaced rectangular wood blocks, with long triangles added to fill in the circular path around the barn.
The next photo shows the interlocking design that keeps the wood blocks in place. According to advertising for this type of flooring, it was less tiring for the cows and horses to stand on a wood floor than on concrete.
The next blog will feature a rack used for drying corn found in this barn, and some corn planting facts that will surprise you. Stay tuned.
In May, farmers lead their cows, wearing flowers and bells, to high mountain pastures to graze for the summer. It is a cultural experience with a long tradition, influenced by tourism today. Cheese made during the summer is brought down when the cows return in August or September, a cause for celebration and selling of the cheese. (2019 photo)
Many of us can trace our roots to Switzerland, where our ancestral farmers lived and worked. My paternal ancestors emigrated from Switzerland over 250 years ago, and many generations later their descendants were still farmers, including my father and Mennonite grandparents.
Silver City Cemetery in Mills County is the site of an annual Memorial Day program organized by William Somervell. Terry’s Texas Rangers, portrayed here, was organized in 1861 as a group of volunteers for the Confederate States Army, and fought in a number of battles.
In 2021, the program began with the American Legion Post 439 color guard, a bagpiper, and riders portraying the Texas Rangers on horseback. The horse on the left in the first row is the riderless horse, with the commander’s boots placed backwards in the stirrups, looking back at his troops. At the end of the procession are civilians dressed in period costume. (See photo below)
The pastor of Silver City United Methodist Church spoke, followed by chaplains of the Legion and Legion Auxiliary. Memorial wreaths were placed in the cemetery and it concluded with a cannon 21-gun salute, a bugler playing taps, and music by a small group of musicians.
Somervell’s Percheron draft horses were originally stabled in the 1904 barn below, renovated to resemble Kentucky horse barns. Today, his seventeen horses reside in a nearby barn. Percherons were used to pull heavy cannons in the war because of their strength, and also were widely used in farming as a draft animal after 1850. Wind your way to Silver City to celebrate Memorial Day in 2022.
This big yellow barn, built in the late 1920s, had steel siding added in the mid-1980s and has been a part of the farm laboratory for the Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) Agribusiness program since 2005. Utilizing the barn are cattle as well as hogs in a farrow-to-finish component.
DMACC leases land and farm buildings from Dallas County for a hands-on real world experience for Ag Business students interested in farm management and production agriculture. It also serves as a model of good conservation practices. The 325 acres leased includes 100 acres of corn, 100 acres of soybeans, with the remaining acres of pasture and hay for the livestock. Various test plots for seed companies are also part of the program.
The farm was originally “the poor farm” or “county farm,” later known as the Dallas County Care Facility. Now, after a $5.5 million remodel of the buildings, completed in 2016, it has become a Dallas County Human Services campus, housing county departments including Public Health, Environmental Health, Community Services, Mental Health/Developmental Disabilities, County Sheriff Communications Center, and more.
The combination of the community college program and county offices is a great plus for Dallas County. The location is: 25747 N Avenue on U.S. Highway 169, north of Adel.
It’s lambing season on farms and thousands of lambs are making their debut in the world. In 2021,Texas was the largest sheep producing state, followed by California. Iowa was #8.
In Iowa on January 1, 2021, there were 160,000 head of sheep and lambs and a total breeding stock of 114,000 head. In the photo below, taken in March 2022, a mom and her two-day old lamb on the Larsen farm at St. Anthony greet visitors.
This sheep isn’t alive but the “hen and chicks” plants are, in the city of Sisteron, France (2011 photo)
What were YOU doing at age five? Marcia Shaver was showing her first calf at the Iowa State Fair at age five. That was almost 80 years ago. She is pictured here at age four on the cover of Milking Shorthorn Journal, March 1941. Thus began her legacy of showing and judging cattle at the Iowa State Fair, the National Dairy Cattle Congress, the Chicago International, the National Show in Madison, Wisconsin, the World Dairy Expo, 13 state fairs, and many other shows.
At the 2005 World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, Marcia showed the grand champion, Mysha Lady Di, pictured below, a highlight of her career. She was also the official judge at the 2000 Sydney, Australia Royal Show. At the Mysha Farm near St. Anthony she still keeps in contact with friends all over the world she has made through the years and also checks on the cattle she owns based on farms in a few other states.
The Milking Shorthorn story began when her father, Noran Shaver, worked at the Clampitt farm south of New Providence milking 40 cows by hand in the era before milking machines. Below is a photo of the Clampitt barn built in 1916, destroyed by a tornado in 1989. See page 247 of Iowa Barns Yesterday and Today for another photo of the barn and more of the Clampitt story.
What was a project that many farmers did years ago in the summer? Her father owned a boxcar and he and his sons would take 12 head from Lawn Hill (near New Providence) in specially constructed stalls in the boxcar, first heading north into Minnesota and then south to Texas. This was a project to make money for the farm and sell a few bulls, stopping at fairs and other shows along the way. Imagine the work and logistics this project would involve.
Marcia and her father continued their love of raising and showing cattle for decades after he bought a farm west of St. Anthony that he named Mysha Farm, now owned by Marcia. He attended his last Iowa State Fair shortly before his death at age 93.
Being a dairy farmer has been a lifelong adventure for the Shaver family, where dedication and breeding prize cattle is legendary. Marcia Shaver-Floyd has broken barriers for women and forged the path for girls to pursue their dreams of raising and showing prize cattle. (Photos courtesy of Marcia Shaver-Floyd)
Do you have a spare silo but don’t know what to do with it? Here’s an idea. This Johnson County silo now has a series of steps inside all the way to the top, offering a magnificent 360-degree view of the surrounding countryside. Below is a long-distance view taken by a drone. (Ritter photo)
The silo idea was the brainchild of Scott Ritter who spent weekends and evenings constructing it, beginning in the summer of 2014 and finishing in late 2015. Enter below to start the climb to the top.
There is a series of steps every four vertical feet, a four-foot landing, then more steps, winding all the way to the top of this 60-foot concrete stave silo. That was a heavy-duty project, lugging pre-cut heavy boards up more and more steps as he headed to the top. Below is a view of the underside of two tiers of the steps, which gives you an idea of the scope of the project.
This view shows the very tiny steps installed outside when the silo was built, date unknown. It would have been a treacherous climb. Today they are just decorative, but serve as a reminder of what climbing them would have been like in earlier times.
This ordinary silo has become an extraordinary silo–with a new life. What a great idea this was! Scott Ritter’s dream has become a reality.
Forty-three years ago, when this photo was taken, this barn at 200 East Main Street in downtown Solon was an empty shell, structurally sound but not in use.
It was built in 1838 as a mill. However, residents in the area complained about the mill’s noise, so it was converted to a livery stable. Horses were housed on the ground level, with a workshop and tack room on the second level. Over the years it was also used for cattle and hogs as well as rental car storage. In front of the stable there was a gas station for 40 years before closing in 1999.
Below is a photo taken in June of 2021. Restoration began in 2013 and it is now Palmer House Stable, a venue for weddings, holiday parties, birthday celebrations, family reunions, weekend retreats, hayloft lodging, and more. See page 56 of Iowa Barns yesterday and today for more of the story. It’s a great transformation.
Prairie Pedlar Gardens, a seven-acre site north of Odebolt, is a popular destination for weddings and summer gatherings. Referred to as a “Bouquet of Gardens,” there is a total of thirty display gardens to see and enjoy. This Sears catalog pre-fab barn, built in 1941-42, also has a barn quilt that adds a touch of elegance.
A rooftop garden of multi-colored wave petunias seen below is a playhouse for their grandchildren. Don’t miss visiting Cook #8 country school on the property and checking out the gift shop as well.
The site is located in Sac County at a corner of what was once the Wheeler farm, one of the largest farms in Iowa. See page 30 of Iowa Barns yesterday and today for more about the Wheeler farm and page 211 for more of the Prairie Pedlar story.
