Historic Barns Map

ADVISORY!  Most of the barns in the San Juan islands are privately owned.  The goal of this website is to provide information about these historic barns while respecting barn owners’ private property.  Many barns can be viewed from public right-of-ways.  Please respect those barns that are on private property and do not trespass!

Thomas G. Blake Farm Barn.  This timber frame barn is built with a center-drive with a hay mow on either side.  It is 31’3″ high and measures 34’6″ wide by 50′ 2″ long; there is a new addition on the west side.  Other farm buildings on the site include a house, chicken coop, machine shed, well house, and the foundation of a silo.

 

 

 

 

T. J. Blake Barn.  This center-drive, timber frame barn was constructed by T. J. Blake in the 1890s.  It measures 40′ side by 50′ long and is 31′ to the ridge.  There is a shed addition on the southwest side.

 

 

 

 

Isabella Bloor Barn.  Probably built around 1905 by John Burt, this barn has a main 30′ wide by 40′ long area (the hay mow) under the gable with an 18′ shed forming the saltbox roof.  It is 30′ in height.  The main structure is log post-and-beam with milled lumber framing.  There is a prominent hay hood.  A nearby milk house indicates that it was used as a dairy barn.

 

 

Joe Burt Farm Barn.  This barn is one of several agricultural structures on the farm, including a granary, milk house, and machine shed.  The main, 30′ wide by 60′ long, portion under the gambrel roof is two stories, with a 10′ high ground floor and a 28’8″ high hay loft.  The shed to the east has stalls.  The structure is milled wood post-and-beam, and there is an ingenious hay elevator that takes bales from the ground level up into the loft and then along the upper part of the loft for placement.

 

Coffelt Farm Barn.  Homesteaded by Jesse and Sarah Coffelt, this farmstead includes a house, barn, chicken coop, milk house, machine shed, and smokehouse.  The barn has a gable roof that covers a center-drive plan with hay mow on either side.  Built with log posts and milled beams and braces, it measures 30′ wide by 50′ long and is 31’8″ high.  The farm had multiple operations, but the barn was clearly used for hay for a dairy operation.

 

 

James Cousins Farm Barn.  James Cousins and his family homesteaded this place in 1883, ultimately building a house, barn, root cellar, milk house, and machine shed.  The timber-frame barn, which has a gable roof with shed covering a center drive, measures 30′ wide by 60′ long; another 18′ shed contains the milking area with stanchions, mangers, and manure trough.  The barn is 35’3″ high and apparently they did not use a hay rail and trolley system to fill the hay mows on either side of the drive in the gable portion.  The broken gable shed contained stanchions on one side and stalls on the other.

 

Joe Ender Farm Barn.  Joe Ender had a farm with several structures: a Dutch Revival house that he moved from Lopez Hill and a barn, milk house, root cellar, and workshop.  The barn has a gable roof with a shed added along the side.  The main portion under the gable measures 30’8″ wide by 74’4″ long; the lower shed is 20′ deep.  The center-access drive, flanked by hay mows, of the main gable portion is 31’2″ high; the shed contained stanchions for milking cows, with the milk being taken to the adjoining milk house for separation and cooling.

 

Joseph Gallanger Barn.  This log post with milled beams and braces barn has a center-entry drive with a shed on one side to form the saltbox.  The main gable area, which measures 38′ wide by 55′ long and is 33’7″ tall, probably had hay mows on both sides; the 18′ shed probably held milking stanchions.  A nearby milkhouse was for separating and cooling the cream.  There is also what may have been a granary in the farm complex.

 

 

William Gallanger Barn.  Built ca. 1925-26 by William Gallanger (1868-1965) and his son Bill, this is one of the few remaining barns on Lopez that is still used for agricultural purposes.  The Gallangers originally built the structure as a dairy barn, for 59 cows, which was one of the largest operations in the islands.  The barn measures 30′ wide by 100′ long, with a 20′ shed on the east; it is 39′ high.  The structure exhibits a mix of old and new architectural technology with a center-drive plan and a pre-fabricated ‘bent’ system combining round log posts with dimensional lumber beams, plates, girts, purlins, and rafters.  Concrete floors and plinths were added as foundational support for the structure, and a (then) state-of-the-art milk house appended to the southwest corner.  Also of note are the two blue Harvestore silos, the only known examples in the islands–which also indicates the relative magnitude and important of the operation.  It is listed on the Washington Heritage Barn Register.

Hayton Farm Barn.  The roof of this barn is odd: it is almost a Dutch Gambrel, because there is a slight lower-pitched roof on the ridge, but the lower slopes stretch down (with a slight alteration) to the first story on either side–and that’s why we’re classifying it as simply “Dutch.”  Built in the late 1930s as a dairy barn, the plan features a floor-to-ridge hay mow in the center flanked by open stalls on either side, where the stanchions used to be.   Oriented north-south, the structure measures 58’6″ wide by 60′ long, and is 28′ tall, and features a metal hay rail with hay door and hood on the south side.  (The construction date is uncertain; John C. Ringler purchased the land from Charles and Lydia Biggs in 1905, and then sold it to William Hayton in 1936; Hayton and his wife Nell resold it in 1942 to Henry and Lavinia Erb.  Because the date is estimated as the late 1930s, we are calling this the Hayton Farm.)

Owen Higgins Barn.  Built by Owen Higgins in 1938, this was used as a dairy barn until 1955, when the San Juan Dairyman’s Association stopped picking up cream on Lopez for the creamery in Friday Harbor.  Higgins, who was a carpenter and shipwright, built the barn himself.  The Dutch gambrel-roofed structure measures 38’6″ wide by 72’6″ long and is 38′ high.  It is listed on the Washington Heritage Barn Register.

 

 

Samuel Hinton Farmstead Barn.  Originally farmed by Samuel Hinton, this place was later used by George Gallanger.  Constructed with log posts and both pole and milled beams and braces, the main section of the barn under the gable measures 22′ wide by 25′ long and is 24’2″ high; the shed forming the broken gable is 13’6″ wide.  There is a hay door with hood on the south gable, suggesting that the main portion was used as a mow for loose hay.

 

Norman Hodgson Barn.  Norman Hodgson was a prominent member of the Richardson community, and this barn may have been one of several located on his farm.  It is approximately 74′ wide and 32′ deep, and consists of a 32′-square center section with loft flanked by 20′ sheds.  At its peak it is about 26′ high.  According to tradition the center portion was moved from a nearby site prior to 1900; later the two side sheds and a back shed (since removed) were added in the early 1900s.  The center portion, which has a concrete foundation and floor, functioned as a granary.

 

Chris Jensen Farm Barn.  The Chris Jensen farmstead consists of several buildings, including a house, barn, chicken house, milk house, machine shed, root cellar, and smoke house.  The main gable of the barn is 30′ wide by 40′ long, with an 18’6″ shed on each side forming the broken gable.  A timber frame structure , the center portion was used as a loose hay mow and the sheds were probably used for stanchions and equipment storage.

 

 

 

Jim McCauley Barn #1.  There are two barns on the Jim McCauley Farm; a broken gable-roofed one (#1) and a shed-roofed one (#2).  The broken gable-roofed barn (#1) is built with posts and beams on sills, and measures 20′ wide by 26’4″ long with a 22’4″ shed.  The gable portion , which is 23′ high, has a loft for hay and a white-washed area below, which suggests that it was used for dairying.  The vertically-sliding barn door is fairly rare in the islands.

 

 

Jim McCauley Barn #2.  The second barn associated with Jim McCauley has two shed-roof sections: one, oriented north-south, is 20′ wide by 30’2″ long, and the other, at right angles to it, is 12’10” wide by 15’10” long.  Both are constructed of wood frame.  The larger was used as a milking shed, with evidence of 8 stanchions as well as a manure gutter.

 

 

Thomas McCauley(?) Barn.  This structure may have been built when Thomas McCauley owned this farm.  It is a simple gable-roofed post barn that measures 36’6″ wide by 41′ long and is 18′ high.  While the open interior space is currently used as a machine shed, there is an overhang on the south side that sheltered open-air mangers for sheep.

 

 

 

 

Peter Nielsen Farm Barn.  Built in 1958 as a dairy barn, this structure is relatively unique as a modern barn.  Only one story high (15’5″), it has a low gable roof over frame construction on 48″ high concrete stem walls.  The main portion has a concrete floor with a drive-in area, with mangers on the sides and stanchions in the portion of the roof that extends to the east.  A milk house, separated by a walkway, is attached to the roofline.  To the south, under an extension of the main roof, is a loafing shed.  Other farm related structures are a dwelling, old milk house, shed, and possibly an older barn.

 

Roy Prestholt Turkey Barn.  In the 1950s Roy Prestholt built this barn for raising turkeys on land owned by T.J. Blake; allegedly it went up in a mere three weekends.  However, it is also told that it was never used for its original purpose!  Oriented east-west, the structure is 60′ wide by 100′ long, 27′ tall, and has bands of window spaces along its sides.  The monitor walls also have ventilation slats, and there are two bands of windows on the gable ends.  The plan has two 20′ banks of pens flanking a 20′-wide center drive.  The building is constructed with a concrete floor and stem walls, with wood framing above.   A prominent feature of this barn is the large gable dormer on the north side, which was used as a granary for the poultry food; doors allowed for loading the feed directly into the second-story space above the pens on the ground floor.

John B. Reed Farm Barn.  Built by John B. Reed around 1929, this barn was part of a farm complex that also included a dwelling and chicken house.  Built with timber frame, it has a center-access plan with a shed on a higher level of the slope that forms the saltbox form of the roof.  With a height of 32’3″, the main portion measures 30′ wide by 54′ long and the saltbox shed is 18′ wide; there is also another, newer 18′ shed on the west gable side.  The two sides of the drive were probably used as hay mows, although a loft has been added to one.

 

 

Ab Ridley Barn.  This timber frame structure has a center drive with flanking hay mows under the gable-roofed portion and flanking stalls under the shed that forms the broken gable.  It measures 30′ wide by 54′ long with a 15′ shed; the height is 35′ to the ridge.  Of particularly note are the sills resting on field stones.

 

 

 

 

Seifert Barn.  Not much is known about the history of this barn.  It consists of a main, gable-roofed area, 24’6″ wide by 48’5″ long and 19’6″ high, that was used as a hay mow, and a 16′ shed on the south side that forms the broken gable, which was used for milking.  There are remains of 14-15 stanchions as well as mangers, a manure gutter, and an access ramp for the milch cows.

 

 

 

Steinbrueck’s Place Barn.  Built around 1915 as a hay barn, this structure has also been used over the years as storage for pea straw as well as tarred reef nets.  The center-entry, saltbox-roofed structure measures 45′ wide by 65′ long and is 35′ high.  It is listed on the Washington Heritage Barn Register.

 

 

 

Harry Towell Farm Barn.  The two shed-roofed wings in an “L” shape plan are the remaining portions of a gable-on-hip-roofed barn built by Harry Towell, who farmed an 80-acre homestead starting in the early 1890s.  The two wings measure 20′ wide by 79’6″ long north-south and 20′ wide by 30’2″ long east-west; both are 17′ high.  The north -south wing has stanchions, mangers, and a manure gutter; the east-west wing has the remains of stalls.  On the property are also a chicken coop, milk house, and granary.

 

Burt Weeks Barn.  This structure, while in poor condition, shows signs of having been a substantial dairy barn.  Constructed of wood frame with milled members, it measures 38′ wide by 44′ long and is 28’8″ high.  The gambrel roof covers a central hay mow that was filled by means of a hay track and trolley system.  Doors in the middle of the sides accessed the mow as well as the horse stalls and cow stanchions that flanked a center aisle on the south side.

 

Edson Weeks Barn.  The Edson Weeks barn is singular in that it has a five-bay, timber frame ‘bent’ system with two center drives.  The structure is large–62′ wide by 100′ long–and tall–38’4″.  The main space under the gable roof, which is 40′ wide, contained the hay mows, while the 22′-wide shed that forms the broken gable on the south side contained as many as 22 stations for milking, including mangers, stanchions, and manure gutter.

 

 

 

Wilson-Kring Farm Barn.  John Wilson, who came to Lopez from Michigan in 1892, had a 80-acre dairy farm with his father-in-law, George Boulton.  The barn has two parts: a 46′ wide by 70′ long, 31’9″ high broken gable roof section used for hay, grain storage, and horse stalls and a 30′ wide by 36′ long addition to the east that contains a ‘modern’ milking parlor, complete with concrete floors and manure gutters and pipe stanchions .  There are also a farmhouse and blacksmith shop on the property.  The Kring family later farmed the property.  It is listed on the Washington Heritage Barn Register.

 

Wilson Farm Barn.  Originally farmed by the Wilson family, and later the McCauleys, this farm was eventually owned by Roy Berg.  The barn, which is largely deteriorated, consists of two gable-roofed sections: a main 30′ wide by 54′ long, 30′ high hay mow oriented east-west, and a 36′ by 30′ addition to the north.  Built of milled lumber in a post and beam system, the main portion appears to have had a center-access door to the hay mow as well as stanchions on the east side.  It is not clear what the north addition was used for.  The farm also has a milk house, granary, and remains of a silo.  The Wilsons probably built the main barn around 1905-1912, and Sam McCauley added the wing to the north in the 1940s.

Zapalac Farm Barn.  This simple gable-roofed barn had a hay mow with a milking area, complete with stanchions, mangers, and manure gutter, along the side.  The post-and-beam structure measures 25’4″ wide by 30’6″ long and is 23’8″ high.  The approximately 8″ diameter posts rest on 6″x 8″ girders that in turn rest on field stones; the upper framing structure was peeled logs.  The barn, which was recently restored, is part of a larger farm complex that includes a cabin, chicken coop, machine shed, and wood shed.