At first glance, you may not notice the banked aspect of this small barn built by Warren McBride in about 1925. As you drive down the portion of 200 South that becomes a dirt road, notice the placement of the barn into the side of the hill. This allowed for hay to be unloaded into the loft from the road on the north side. Warren’s father Wells McBride came here from Farmington to settle this area of Hyrum. An earlier barn built by him has since fallen down. The only memory Keith McBride, son of Warren, has of the building of the barn is that the builder, Bob McFarland, asked if Keith would go get him a drink of water, and when he did, the man gave him a nickel—a lot of money for a little boy in those days. While Keith was growing up they raised sugar beets, peas, pole beans, and watermelon. A big watermelon cost a dime and a little watermelon cost a nickel. Keith’s mother raised chickens, and the family had their own eggs, milk, meat, and produce. Warren McBride never had to work away from the farm. Keith McBride points out that a sagging portion in the ceiling of the barn occurred one year when his father put chopped
hay in there. It weighed more than the loose hay that the barn had been built for. Baled and even chopped hay add a lot more weight. The family kept work horses in the barn. Keith, like many children of that generation, either rode the derrick horse or worked the Jackson fork. Keith says that he felt like he had graduated when he didn’t have to ride that derrick horse any more.

Warren McBride used the barn to milk dairy cows. He started with Jersey cows, then moved on to Guernseys, and ended up with about a dozen Holsteins. He milked by hand for many years, with the cows standing in wooden stanchions, and then they got an electric bucket milker and changed the stanchions to metal. The milk house was built onto the west side of the barn when Grade A regulations changed. The barn’s current use is for the storage of baled hay for feeding bulls and horses. Keith treasures a poem his father wrote about the barn.

Viewing directions: The barn is on the bend of 200 South where the road becomes unpaved. View barn from 200 South looking east

(above info from Historic Barns – Cache County #15)

555 West 200 South in Hyrum, Utah

Day Dairy Barn

This dairy barn was built in the early 1920s by Elias John Day and his sons.

The barn, located on 12300 South 600 East, was where Elias John farmed and started building his dairy herd. Like so many others during the depression of the 1930s, Elias John Day nearly lost the farm. One of his sons, Harmon Eastman Day, grew up farming with his father and brothers, married, and moved to Cedar City with his wife, Phoebe McConnell. Harmon moved his family back to Draper and took over the mortgage in 1931, and kept the farm operating during the 1930s with a series of sugar beet crop mortgages. Elias John died suddenly of a heart attack in 1934. During those difficult times, Harmon drove his seven or eight cows along the road so they could eat the grass growing on the roadside. From this small beginning, Harmon built a productive dairy farm with an outstanding herd of registered Holstein cattle.

The farm became a regional standard for modern, efficient agricultural practice. Harmon’s sons, Jack and Henry, assumed responsibility for the dairy farm when their father died in 1965. This barn was used as a milking barn until the mid-1970s when a more modern barn was built. In 2005 Henry and his son Scott sold the property and moved the dairy operation to Payson, Utah. This barn was sold at auction to members of the Draper Historic Preservation Commission (Katie Shell, Todd Shoemaker and Rob Perry) for $900. Donations made refurbishing and moving the barn to this location possible for the use and enjoyment of the Draper Community.

The barn is located in Draper Pioneer Square at 1160 East Pioneer Road in Draper, Utah

360 West 100 North in Fairview, Utah

This very cool list of historic barns was put together Bear River Heritage Area:

• Historic Barns of Northern Utah: A Self-Guided Driving Tour

This page is to link to my photos from my visits when I try to visit all of them.

39. Horse Barn in Hyde Park