Krumdiack Homestead Barn, Waldron Island

Not all San Juan County barns are located on the four ferry-served islands (Lopez, Orcas, San Juan, and Shaw).  The Krumdiack Homestead Barn is a witness to a time when it was just as easy (or difficult) to live and farm on a (now considered) remote island because everyone was travelling throughout the San Juans by boat.  Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich  Krumdiack (1854-1936) was born in Hanorver Province, Germany, and emigrated to the Hawaiian Islands to work on a sugar plantation.  After a short time in Port Townsend working as a brewer,  he and his family moved with his sister and her husband to Waldron Island, where he filed for a homestead in 1890.  Krumdiack worked as a cordwood cutter and did subsistence farming on the place.

Tree Trunk as Post

The Krumdiack Farm consists of a log house, timberframe barn, and several agricultural outbuildings.  The barn, which measures 42′ wide by 57′ long, has a center drive flanked by two sheds.  It has a long gable roof with a shed to the west.  The log ridge pole rests upon two 20-foot high tree trunks.  The walls are enclosed with cedar board-and-batten siding.

The Krumdiak Homestead, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is a signal example of a pioneer family farm, and the barn is the centerpiece.