Why old dairy barns strike an emotional chord within us

There is something about old dairy barns that get people misty eyed and a bit weepy even if they themselves never milked a cow or cleaned a calf pen. We see it in the plethora of barn books, paintings and photos of red barns and black and white cows grazing on green grass.

At the same time many of these folks are unhappy to see the move to free-stall barns with their flat roofs, white color and no second story where hay could be stored for winter.

What is there about the dairy barn of the first 80 years of the 20th century that prompts the emotions and actions of people who love them and want to save them? (Typing “saving barns” in the search bar of my computer brought up 73,500 citations.)

Of course, it has all to do with history. Maybe because back in the ‘40’s, 50’s and 60’s, the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons were big family visiting days. That’s when the city cousins visited grandpa and grandma on the farm where they ate a big turkey dinner. Then the cousins played basketball in front of the barn where the hoop was attached high above the door or in the hay mow where the basket was bolted to a beam.

Later in the afternoon, just before they went home, the youngsters and parents went into the barn where evening chores were in progress and marveled at the cows in their stanchions, all lined up in a row. The host farmers pointed out the good cows and showed the visitors what the cows ate while the youngsters petted the calves.

It was the highlight of the year for both farmer and the city visitors and never to be forgotten.

It’s because Elsie the Borden cow was a national advertising icon and convinced many youngsters (and oldsters) that she was a human cow. Maybe because the dairy barn was the central location where hard-working, overall-wearing, honest, family-oriented, go-to-bed-early, animal-loving farmers spent their time alongside their long-faced, expressionless, hay-eating, milk-giving cows.

Maybe it’s because of the Sunday “drives in the country” when the family packed into the car and looked at the growing crops, cows grazing in green pastures and farmers working in the fields.

For certain it is because those of us raised on a farm during that era never forget. How many times have friends asked me why there are so many empty dairy barns along Wisconsin country roads?

Countless.

Those barns are empty for one reason: they were too small and outdated to continue as dairy barns. Most were built in the early 1900’s when dairy farms were small. In 1960, the average Wisconsin dairy herd was but 27 cows. By 1980 that figure had zoomed to 38 cows, making those little red barns holding about 30 cows too small. The progressive dairy farmers were already adding building extensions to the barn jumping their cow numbers up into the 50's and higher.

By 1990, the average Wisconsin herd was at 51 cows and even the additions constructed just a few years prior were obsolete. The last traditional round roof, tie-stall barn I saw being built was in the late 1980’s. (Note: A traditional dairy barn was built about 10 years ago in Dane county to replace one destroyed in a fire.)

The first mega dairy (in modern times) in Wisconsin with about 800 cows (or thereabouts) began operation in the late 1980’s and the freestall barn with milking parlor soon became the standard in new construction. Today there are under 600 active dairy herds in Wisconsin with about 75% of them still housed in traditional stanchion or tie-stall barns ‒ all are old.

Just 20 years ago there were 32,500 dairy farms. That means 30,000 dairy barns became cow-less in two decades. Add in the 70,000 dairy barns that closed prior to 1990 and that makes for a lot of unused daIry barns.

Although traditional dairy barns were labor intensive, unhandy and not very cow-comfortable, they did make for lots of learning experiences for those of us who were raised with them. Those experiences were called hard work at the time and became the memories of today.

The dairy farm family worked together ‒ they had to. Milking by hand meant dad and the kids were involved most every milking ‒ morning and night. That brought on a lot of talking, if there wasn’t a popular program running on the cheap radio hung from the ceiling braces.

More memories to come.

John F. Oncken can be reached at [email protected]