TH UR SDA Y , F E B R U A R Y 23 , 20 17
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Architectural links to past Urban barns from late 1800s, early 1900s dot Kendall County
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By ROGER MATILE news@kendallcountynow.com hey’re such a familiar part of the small-town landscape that you probably haven’t even noticed them. Urban barns, built in the 19th and early 20th centuries, dot small residential neighborhoods almost everywhere. Some of these structures are smaller than a modern two-car garage. Others are more elaborate, some built with multiple stories and some that once included living quarters for servants during the era when they, too, were common fixtures. Plans for urban barns were carefully developed, especially interior arrangements, to allow efficient use of space. Publications such as “Barns, Sheds & Outbuildings” by Byron D. Halsted (1881) provided floor plans and design ideas. Until the first quarter of the 20th century, the elements of life on farms and in small towns was not that much different. Just like their country cousins, village residents often kept a cow for fresh milk, raised chickens for eggs and meat, and kept one, and sometimes two, driving horses to pull their buggies, carriages and winter sleighs. And just like their country cousins, they built barns scaled to urban lot sizes to house their urban livestock and horse-drawn vehicles. In fact, many small-town residential lots bore a resemblance to tiny farms. Along with barns, chicken houses, smoke houses, well houses and small tool storage sheds were not uncommon. For instance, on Dec. 18, 1918, the Kendall County Record carried this advertisement: “For Sale: A new eight room house,
gas and electric light installed, a barn, chicken house, and four lots. Inquire of Henry Schilling, Oswego.” Urban barns ranged from small and simple to large and elaborate. They could be purpose-built and they were sometimes created from other buildings that were repurposed instead of being torn down. And sometimes, after they were no longer needed they themselves were repurposed into homes and other structures. The primary use for most urban barns in residential areas was to house the family driving horse or team and their buggy or carriage or their winter sleigh. Stalls in the barn were arranged so that horses had sufficient room, and the barn was built to include storage for bedding and food for the horse. If a family cow was housed in the barn as well, provisions were also made for feeding and milking it. In addition to barns in residential areas, commercial urban barns were also common throughout 19th century communities. Most hotels had their own barns where guests could board their horses. Every town also had at least one livery barn where those who didn’t have their own barn could board their horses or where a horse and buggy or a riding horse could be rented. In Oswego, the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad company even provided a barn for the use of the station agent, where he sometimes kept a horse and where he also raised chickens to supplement the family diet. When a new house was built, it was not uncommon for the
Photos provided by Roger Matile
Levi Hall Barn: Oswego druggist and banker Levi Hall built this elaborate urban barn and coach house in 1886 to compliment his new ornate Italianate house on South Main Street in Oswego. barn to be built first and then used as living quarters until the home was finished. That’s the route Oswego builder Fred Kohlhammer took when he built his new home on North Madison Street (Ill. Route 25) at Waubonsie Creek back in 1904. As the Record’s Oswego correspondent reported on Sept. 7: “The new Kohlhammer residence, now all enclosed and much of the inside work done will be a showy and all around good one. … The family at present is domiciled in the barn, which was built first.” The heyday of urban barns was in the the 1880s through the first decade of the 1900s. After that, the rapid replacement of horse-drawn vehicles with automobiles and trucks led to urban barns’ replacement by smaller,
See URBAN BARNS, page 6
Barn Alley: The alley connecting Monroe with Madison Street in Oswego, nicknamed Barn Alley, has one of the village’s finest collections of urban barns. In a 2009 architectural survey of Oswego, 22 urban barns were identified, several of which were listed as architecturally significant.