By Cindy Ladage

MUSCATINE, Iowa – Paul Carroll, a member of Friends of the Old Barn, shared the story of the Old County Home Dairy Barn, once part of the County Farm, that came within weeks of being torn down.

The County Farm was once known as the poor farm. There was a house and 200 acres. The Old County Home Dairy Barn held cows that were the farm’s dairy herd. When the county decided that the farm was no longer useful, they began to parcel out the land and buildings. Carroll said, “The old County Farm had operated a dairy herd until the 1970s, and the farm was rented until the 1990s. Some of the land was saved for a park and some was given to a non-profit.”

The barn, however, had become a neglected, no longer needed building, as contractor John Haskins would soon find out.

Haskins, during the winter of 2005, called a friend to ask if he had any winter work for him. The man said yes, that he was going to tear down the Old County Barn.  Haskins told his friend that he hoped he wouldn’t be mad, but he was going to oppose tearing down this historic building. The tear down was going to take place in two weeks.

Thankfully, Haskins was successful along with others that wanted to save the barn.  “He went to the Board of Supervisors and was able to stop the tear down,” Carroll said.

It turns out that this barn is rather special. “The barn was built in 1926, it is William Loudon’s design, and this barn was built in 90 days,” Carroll said.

He said that his family has long been in the Muscatine area and that way back in the 1920s, when the barn was built, his family bid on the project to build it. The contractor that ended up building the barn was Tom Maher and the design was one from the Loudon Machinery Company.

The story behind the company is one of a farm boy wanting to find a better way of doing things. “In 1867 in Fairfield, Iowa, when pitching hay with his brother, William Loudon invented a pulley and track to put loose hay in a barn,” Carroll said.

To make the system sell better, Loudon came up with designs for barns. The firm reportedly designed more than 25,000 barns from 1906 to 1939 and the Old County Barn was one of them. William Loudon’s nephew shared some of the story with the Friends of the Old Barn about Loudon’s success. Besides his hay pulley system, William Loudon went on to create flexible barn door hangers, all steel cow stalls and more.

Paul said that it was a manure bucket hanging on chains demonstrated at the Pennsylvania State Fair that caught the attention of military brass. It seemed to be the perfect thing to help move ammunition in plants for the World War I effort.  Rather than use this, Loudon said that he would develop a system just for the plants and that became a monorail equipment carrier. This development moved the Loudon company into industrial and military manufacturing.

At the barn, they have one of the Loudon manure buckets on site. Another cool tie-n is in the local Muscatine Art Center, where there is a Grant Woods print with a farm scene with this bucket manure system, Carroll said.

The Old County Barn was saved in 2005 and they signed their lease in 2006 for the barn. “There had not been any hay stored in the barn for several years so within a year we cleaned it up and painted it.  During 2007 and 2008, the economy was bad, and we needed money for an elevator.”

Carroll said that they had put this on hold for a while because of bigger needs in the community, then a wealthy donor stepped in and donated the needed money for the elevator.

Over the years, the barn has added several of the Loudon hay pulley systems, making this a small Loudon history museum. The barn’s upper level is an architectural masterpiece with the amazing, rounded ceiling. There is also other farming equipment on hand, making this an interesting place for collectors.

At the recent Gathering of the Green, barn and builder expert Rick Collins had a presentation, Timber Frame in Agriculture, a history of barn and building in the Upper Midwest. He shared that barns like Loudon’s, using hay pulleys, changed the way barns were made. “There were straight beams prior to when they put in hay carriers. When they did this, they took out the straight beams,” he explained.

He said in many barns that he has restored, he has had to replace the straight beams that the time-saving hay loaders removed. Collins said over the years he has seen several barns with Loudon’s designs and that he even has a book with these cool designs.

The Old County Home Dairy Barn is used as now an educational place and for events. Small groups can set up tours by calling 563-264-5922.