DEKALB, Ill. — The fourth annual DeKalb County Barn Tour is set for 9 a.m.-4 p.m. on August 12. The tour includes livestock and grain farms, repurposed barns and a winery, along with a couple more historical sites along the way.

 

The tour is sponsored jointly by the  DeKalb Area Agricultural Heritage Assoc.(DAAHA) and the J.F. Glidden Homestead and Historical Center, DeKalb. This year the tour features barns in the Waterman-Shabbona area. The self-guided tour includes a tour at each of 10 barns, with demonstrations, displays and family activities.

The tour begins in downtown Waterman with the purchase of a souvenir Guide Book with map, which serves as your ticket. Tickets are $25 per carload and are available online at dekalbcountybarntour.yapsody.com or at each site the day of the event.

The guide book contains hand-drawn sketches of each barn by Illinois artist David Allen Badger, the history of each barn, a map of locations, a list of activities at each site and educational information about barns.

“The entire tour encompasses about 30 miles, and there are unlimited photos ops along the way for photographers, like me,” said Bob Myers, barn tour committee member. “I’ll be out again with my drone.”

Along with a tour of each barn, at the Tuntland’s repurposed barn – now the home of Waterman Winery – watch a rope-making demonstration and for a nominal fee enjoy a wine tasting. At Bock’s Honey Hill Orchard enjoy refreshing apple cider.

At the Brummel-Larson Barn, see the handmade bed quilt to be raffled off at the end of the day and pick up some tickets.

Lunch will be offered at the Challand Barn site and at Red Home Farm, where mini cows, goats and pigs will be waiting to greet guests. Other stops include barns at the Ostfriesland Farm, Thomas/Todd site, Carroll Farm, Mitchell/Redmond Farm and the Hart Homestead.

Optional highlights include a tour of the Monsanto production facility and visits to the Waterman Historical Society Museum and the former Quilhot oneroom school, now attached to Resource Bank in Shabbona.

As visitors drive the tour, they are urged to check out the Henry Rose barbed wire historical marker and the Elva grain elevator. While Joseph Glidden is credited with the first patent for barbed wire, Waterman farmer Henry Rose was an early innovator attaching barbs to fencing.

More than 100 years later, a historical marker was dedicated to Rose outside of his former farm at 10302 Waterman Road. The marker was dedicated in 1976 by the DeKalb County Board and the DeKalb County Historical Society. The marker reads: 

“HENRY M. ROSE “Originator of barbed fencing “In the early 1870s when rural life held promise for a nation almost 100 years old, Henry M. Rose farmed this farmstead. He received United States Patent 138-763 for an ‘improvement in fence.’

Rose used a strip of wood 16 feet long and an inch square. He cut wire pieces two inches long at a 90-degree angle which were driven into the strips about eight inches apart. The strips were tied to wire fence. When displayed for the public at a fair in 1873 it triggered ideas for all wire barb fencing. His creation was a great step forward in fencing history.”

According to the Illinoisinfocus.com, the Elva grain elevator is unique because of its shape. Located near the geographic center of Dekalb County on Elva Road is the tiny village of Elva. The land that Elva was built on was owned by Glidden and the town was named for his daughter Elva Glidden Bush. It was founded after the Northern Illinois Railroad was built, but today it has shrunk in size.

The most noticeable feature of Elva today is what looks like an early grain elevator along the railroad. It looks as if it was made of nine tile silos stacked together with something that almost looks like a barn on top. Visitors can also see another building that looks like it was a train station that residents would use if they wanted to go to nearby Dekalb.

Additional information is available by contacting Glidden Homestead at 815-756-7904 or info@gliddenhomestead.org or by visiting gliddenhomestead.org, or DAAHA at 815-756-8737 or daaha.inc@gmail.com or by visiting daaha.org. Follow Barn Tour updates on Facebook at Barn Tour of DeKalb County Ill.