Museum prepares for 7th annual Historic Barn Tour

Six historic barns will roll out the welcome mat when the Hancock Historical Museum hosts its seventh Historic Barn Tour. The event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 7. All of the barns are located southern Hancock County in the Jenera/Rawson area. "So you can spend a whole day at your leisure going through each of these barns, and there's a variety of activities paired with each one," said executive director Sarah Foltz. "You're going to see anything from live music, food vendors, farmers market style vendors, artists. We have a full kids zone." In the past, the one-day event has attracted 700 to 1,000 people, according to Lauren Etler, special events and communications coordinator for the museum. "It's my favorite event that we do," she said. "And I think rural heritage is something almost every single person can trace their lineage back to." For example, when our ancestors settled in this country, the first thing they did was most likely build a barn, she said. "That was their livelihood," she said. On the tour, attendees will learn about the history of each barn, the farms they occupy and the families who have owned them. Each barn also displays impressive architecture, an array of timber-framing techniques and styles that have served a variety of purposes. "Hancock County has a rich history in agriculture and each stop on the tour has a unique story to tell from the design of the structures to how the spaces were used and who was there," said Foltz. "The Historic Barn Tour is one way we can educate all ages about our agricultural history and celebrate preservation throughout our county in a really fun way." The first barn tour was held in 2013 and is now a biennial event, alternating with the Historic Homes Tour. Etler said a few people were interested in being on the tour after the 2022 event. Gary Wilson, a retired OSU Extension educator and seventh-generation farmer in the Jenera area, has helped plan the event since the start. "We have connections to the Jenera area and the Jenera area has a very high concentration of historic timber-framed barns," Etler said. "Hancock County is unique as well just because it's a still very active family farm community. So it's a testament to the generations of families who continue to steward those farms and keep them up." Although this is the third time the tour has focused on the Jenera area, she said these are all new barns except the Traucht-Saum Barn that is a repeat from the first year. "But there is a new family, the Saum Family, that owns that property now. So all the rest of the barns are completely new to the tour and have never participated in the historic barn tour before," said Etler. Usually people are very receptive to being on the tour, she noted. "I think our barn families take a lot of pride in their properties as well as their barns, and they're very eager to share them with the public which we're very grateful for," she said. Foltz said you can feel the pride and excitement when you talk with the barn owners. "It is a labor of love to care for these historic structures. And to have this opportunity to spotlight that and show the hard work and the investment and the years and years of dedication they put in is special," she said. The oldest structure on the tour this year is the Bormuth-Rankey Barn which was built in the early 1860s, said Etler. "It's an Ohio Sesquicentennial Barn so it has been in Ann Rankey-Welch's family for over 150 years," she said. The nonprofit Friends of Ohio Barns group helps with every tour. "And our past president Ric Beck, he comes up. We have a day we go out in the county and kind of scout," said Etler. "And he said, 'If you look long enough you can see the history of Ohio's forests in the posts and beams of each barn, some of which may be the first trees felled in the area for that settlement.'" "And he always says, 'People think the virgin forest is gone. Well, it's in our barns,'" she said. The barn tour was awarded the Ohio State Historic Preservation Office's Public Education & Awareness Award for preservation excellence in 2014. Ohio History Connection's former CEO, Burt Logan, recognized the tour as a "model program for the state." In 2018, the barn tour was honored to be a recipient of the Scenic Ohio Award. "We are really proud of what the historic barn tour has done to preserve the resources in our county," she said. Of the barns on the tour, one is a certified Ohio Sesquicentennial farm, one of a certified Ohio Century farm and one farm is in the process of applying so half of the farms have been in the same families for 100 years, said Etler. This is one of the primary fundraisers for the Hancock Historical Museum, Foltz said. "However, the funds that go from the event directly into our annual operations also allow our staff to work directly with these farm owners to learn more about their property, to learn their family genealogy, to receive guidance to receive that designation as an Ohio Century farm," she said. "And Lauren has been working closely with each barn owner that wants to take advantage of that opportunity." There will be posters at each of the barns telling about the history of the property as the deed lineage. Etler said employees at the Hancock County Recorder's Office help research the deeds. "This event is designed for someone who has grown up on a farm, who had families who owned farms, and those who have never stepped foot on a farm before because we put a lot of resources together so you can learn some of that terminology and really understand how these structures were built, even if you're never stepped inside a timber-framed barn before," said Foltz.