By SUSAN MYKRANTZ
Ohio Correspondent

WOOSTER, Ohio — According to Wayne County auditor records, there are 2,200 barns in Wayne county that are 50 years or older and measure 30-feet by 40-feet (the basic size for the smallest barns in Ohio). And a group of volunteers plan to record the history and story of every one of them, as part of the county’s historic barn survey.

The survey is being conducted by volunteers, in cooperation with the Wayne County Historical Society.

Ohio was the crossroad to the settlement of America, as pioneers came through Ohio to go further west, according to Rudy Christian. And once they got to Ohio, many found it hard to leave, but when they did, they left part of their culture behind, oftentimes as a barn.

Christian, a board member of Friends of Ohio Barns and part of the Wayne County survey team, told the audience attending the 2010 Friends of Ohio Barns Conference at the Shisler Center in Wooster, Ohio, the group has been working with the historical society over the past year to plan the survey forms and develop the instruction manual for the survey. The Wayne county group has expanded on work previously done in Ashland County.

“Ohio has a greater diversity of barns than anywhere else in the world,” he said. “All of the barns started with one basic design, but then they were modified and the floor plans changed, or the roof type changed.”

Everyone agrees that the loss of these barns is unfortunate, and that it would be great to stop it if possible. He added that it is important to document the barns that are still standing so that when people look back they can see what type of barns were in the county. Christian said that identifying historic barns is also helpful for producers applying for the Ohio Agricultural Easement program.
“Our goal is to turn the results into something that is accessible any place the internet reaches,” he said.

“We want to have a digital record of the barns in the county, and have the online data in a searchable form. This survey is the beginning of the process because it is repeatable in other counties. We don’t want to reinvent the wheel, we need to represent the state with a useable model.”

As part of the background work on the project, they used a grant to create a survey form detailing the type of barn, its overall condition, the shape of the barn, type of siding, and whether it is vertical or horizontal, roof shape, roofing materials, foundation and any additions, as well as developing a resource manual for survey crew members. They also acquired digital cameras to photograph the barns so that anyone searching online can see all of the aspects of the barns.

But while the survey forms have spaces for the address and GPS location, they also want to respect the privacy of the owners and that information will not be included on the internet records. 
The survey team hopes that other disciplines such as architects and wood and forestry specialists will take it further to study the styles of the barns, as well as the wood and the age of the trees that were used to build the barns.

Bob Weygandt, a member of the survey team, and owner of a historic barn told the audience that it was important for the barns to be documented for future generations.

“50 years from now, probably half of these barns we see today won’t be around,” Weygandt said. “They do not don’t prove themselves for today’s agriculture and for larger farms.