Barns in the National Park System

Proctor, Kate

The agricultural buildings of rural America have only recently become a subject of interest to architectural and social historians. Though scholarly studies have been made of Pennsylvania a barns by Shoemaker and Dornbusch, and of log barns by Glassie, more general recognition of their value is required if they are to be saved. Barns represent a valuable resource which tells much about pioneer settlement in America, but which is also rapidly disappearing. As a major rural landowner, the National Park Service has many farmsteads in its charge. This report provides an inventory of barns within the Park System, barns which are recorded as historic: structures and should be preserved. The inventory fallows the start made by the study of lighthouses (1980) in the production of a series of volumes produced by the Park Historic: Architecture Division, dealing with various building types. Its purpose is similar; to draw attention to a historic resource, to list structures and attempt a classification. A text, pointing out regional types, accompanies the inventory. It is intended that this information be recorded as an established category on the List of Classified Structures (LCS). This report is divided into two parts, each dealing with barns by region and then by park. The first section is a text which draws attention to the characteristic types of barns in each region, with illustrations from the LCS photo books and the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) drawings. The inventory in the second section records as far as possible basic facts on each barn. Unless otherwise stated, information is based on that available on the LCS, which in turn records only historic structures meeting the criteria used for the National Register of Historic Places.

Barns in the National Park System

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