We love our barns up here. “Our” is used loosely, as most of us don’t have barns, except for the pole barn variety, and those are not our subject for the day. No indeed. We are talking about good old barns that have stood for a long time, and picturesque ruins that are quietly fading into the landscape. Lovingly tended centennial barns and brand new barns. Barns that have fallen on hard times and then been fixed up good as new. Barns that shelter animals and barns that store crops. Barns that carry a family’s whole history in their rafters.
These are just a few that I love, every last one of them somebody else’s barn. (My barn was a huge old thing five miles outside of Rhinelander, Wisconsin. It belonged to my grandparents. My Uncle Howard and my dad helped my grandfather reshingle it when I was little. The haymow of that barn is one of the best places I’ve ever been, and I have been fortunate as to places to be. I can’t think of an excuse to put it in an Antrim County gallery, but you can see a picture of it here.)
You’ve seen some of these before, but I figure there are never too many barn pictures around here. Lots of them come with great stories. I told you about Mark White’s barn-falling, and I’ve written a fair amount about Bayview Farm and Providence Farm. There are more stories, and someday I will have the time to tell you all of them.
The Michigan Barn Preservation Network has a Barn of the Year competition and would like submissions. I considered nominating some of my personal favorites, but it was too hard to choose. If you would like to nominate your favorite barn, you can read all about it in the Announcement and you can download and complete the Nomination Form. If you would like some help with this, let me know. And if you just have great barn stories or barn pictures, let me know about those, too!
Torch Lake Views 
Deb
November 23, 2009
Great barn collection in one of my favorite Michigan counties. Very nice gallery to view for Thanksgiving.
Babs Young
November 23, 2009
The Antrim County Historical Society is trying to document all the barns is Antrim County. The Claars, Diantha Harris and I did Torch Lake and Banks Townships. However, it’s never really been put together and it should be. Some of the barns I photographed are down. I hope they get this done. It will all go to Michigan State when done.
Gerry
November 23, 2009
That ACHS survey is truly ambitious. I hope it is eventually archived at Michigan State. In the meantime, I’d be delighted to create a digital archive of the material on Torch Lake Views.
Babs Young
November 23, 2009
That is a project that I will begin when I get back from Buckeye Country and after new year begins.
Gerry
November 23, 2009
Hi Babs! OK, we have a nice little winter project. (And don’t forget the silo project. I am haunted by the barnless silos that dot the County.)
flandrumhill
November 24, 2009
Beautiful barns Gerry. There is only one around here. It was painted white for ages, and then suddenly a couple of years ago it was painted red. The change refreshed the entire landscape. It’s always a landmark when giving directions out to Cow Bay or the trails.
p.j. grath
November 24, 2009
Only one barn???
flandrumhill
November 24, 2009
Cow Bay isn’t the farming community it was years ago 😦
Cindy Lou
November 24, 2009
Another one of my favorite things…barns! Yea! My son has promised to take me on a barn road trip…WI, MI, MN, MT…wherever I want! 🙂
Gerry
November 24, 2009
Come on down, Cindy Lou!
p.j. grath
November 24, 2009
I wish our barn had a foundation. Without one, its days are numbered. I noticed that barns over in Door County, Wisconsin, are (in general) kept in much better repair than ours here in Leelanau County, Michigan. Probably more of them are still being used for their original purposes.
Gerry
November 24, 2009
The barn of my childhood (which was old when I lived there, and I’m older than dirt) is still standing and serviceable over in Rhinelander–or at least it was a couple of years ago.
There may be hope for your barn. Betty Beeby made up her mind to save the old family log cabin on Torch Lake. She had the whole thing jacked up, repaired, and resettled on a steel beam foundation. “It will last another hundred years,” she says.
Anna Surface
November 27, 2009
Truly beautiful barn photos! I love barns of every kind whether in disrepair or fixed-up in all four seasons. No, there is never too many barn pictures! 🙂
Gerry
November 28, 2009
I knew you’d understand about the barns, Anna. You’ve made quite a study of them, to good effect!
Andrea Romeyn
November 29, 2009
Hi Gerry! What a nice suprise to see our barn in your beautiful collection! Great photos, all of them. Ryan and I quizzed eachother and he knows almost every one of them.
Andrea
Gerry
November 29, 2009
Can’t imagine thinking of Antrim’s barns without including the new kid on the block, especially one where I’ve found so much enjoyment. When Babs gets back we’ll get the Barn Project moving. And the silo project too.
jp
May 3, 2010
Does anyone know of a farm that belonged to a John Steiner? I am trying to trace torch lake roots for a project.
Gerry
May 3, 2010
Hello, JP. That’s not really enough information for us to help you much. A quick look found a lot of Steiners around Torch Lake between 1900 and 1930. Some of them might have been a John, as names can shift around over time and circumstance (Jack, Jake, Johan, something obscure that a transcriber put down). There’s a Steiner Road over in Bellaire, but I have no idea which Steiners it might have been named for.
Here are some suggestions:
Assemble as much information as you can about John – his approximate date of birth/death, names of his parents, siblings, spouse(s), children. That will help you locate your particular Steiners.
You might take a look at the Antrim County genealogy website: http://www.online-isp.com/~maggie/antrim/
Check out genealogical assistance at your local library or at a Family History Center. (The Mormon Church operates these centers in many places around the country. They are open to anyone, and are very helpful.)
You could also sign onto Ancestry.Com for a free trial and do a search in the Census returns for the years when you think John might have been here.
Finally, you might check out the land records, but you’d need to have a good idea of when John was here in order to make that productive.
I assume you’re not living up here. If you get to the point where we can make a good guess at where John’s farm was, I’d be happy to swing by and take a photo. You can get in touch by leaving a comment or by sending an email via the Contact Us link in the upper right column. Good luck!
jp
May 4, 2010
Thank you very much for your time! I will look into these things. You are very kind!
Gerry
May 4, 2010
That is not the universal opinion. However, I am always interested in people’s historical research and enjoy giving advice. (Comes of being an oldest sister.)
jp
May 5, 2010
Hi again Gerry, I still can not find what im looking for. where did you find the info about the steiners living during the 1900’s and 1930’s at? because I know for sure that John steiner owned the farm in 1928.
thanks again
JP
Gerry
May 5, 2010
Hi, JP. I went to Ancestry.Com and searched for John Steiner in Antrim County Michigan in census files from 1900-1930. That returned a great many Steiners from all over the place, some of them in the vicinity and others not, none that popped up as an obvious match, but I didn’t go past the first 50 entries, either. Given the added information that John owned the farm in 1928, I did another quick search of the 1930 Census only, guessing that John might have been born between 1890 and 1910, and found a whole lot of John Steiners, which is progress. Miss Sadie is going to send you an email about that.
The more information you put into a search, the more likely you are to succeed with it. I am absolutely positive that your local librarian can help you get a good start on this project. In my experience, all of them are knowledgeable about genealogy. Naturally they know the most about the areas where they work, but the skills work across the board.
P.j. grath
November 10, 2011
Gerry, the barns are magnificent, and I like the new carousel feature. It lets me decide how long I want to linger on an image, instead of deciding for me, as the slide show does. But then, I did like your slide shows, too. Guess I like both features and will leave it to you to choose which you use on a respective post! (Kind of me, n’est-ce pas?)
Gerry
November 10, 2011
Thanks for taking the time to test-drive the new feature. I’m ambivalent myself–no surprise there . . .