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Landmark overlooking Highways 44 - 76 intersection coming down
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By Charlie Warner
Argus News Editor
Folks driving along Highways 44 or 76 on the north side of Caledonia have probably noticed a work in progress for some time. A century-old barn, located on a hill overlooking the intersection of the two state highways has been methodically taken down, piece by piece. As of last Wednesday, all that remained were the huge six by six and eight by eight hardwood beams and rafters that had been fighting Mother Nature and gravity for more than 100 years.
“We either had to fix it up, or tear it down,” explained Harley Doering, as he looked at the skeletal remains of the structure where he milked cows for decades. The tin siding and roof was looking pretty tacky, and the Doerings had prided themselves on keeping their dairy farm, located on the edge of town being neat as a pin.
“Did we really want to stick all that money into a barn that could never be used for livestock anymore?” Doering rhetorically asked. “The farm is actually in the city limits, so we can’t have livestock. So why have the barn?”
At first, Doering figured the massive beams and rafters, and the thousands of board feet of barn boards would be worth enough to prompt someone to pay Doering to tear the barn down. He advertised the barn for sale, had a number of interested parties, including Amish carpenters from Wisconsin and Fillmore County. But when they stated figuring how much work it would take to pull all the tin siding and roofing off first, it just didn’t look as attractive.
When Doering decided to offer the barn to anyone who would tear it down and clean up the remains, he received a number of calls. Affordable Green Dreams, a landscaping company from Onalaska, Wis. ended up with the project, and has been dismantling the 40 by 70 foot barn and adjoining lean-to since mid October.
While there is value in the beams and rafters, the wood that was underneath the tin siding isn’t your run-of-the-mill barn boards that are in such demand. The boards on Doering’s board are a wide lap siding. He figures that’s another reason why he wasn’t able to generate interest in anyone paying him to tear the barn down.
The workers from Affordable Green Dreams figure the barn was actually built from parts of old barns, and a tobacco shed. Many of the upright beams have large notches cut in them where there are no horizontal connecting beams.
“It was an old barn, but the lumber in much of it is even older than the barn,” Doering theorized.
The Doerings milked about 50 cows twice a day in the barn for decades, and sold their herd in 1997. They had three daughters and a son who all helped with the milking chores when they were growing up. But once they graduated from high school, they all went off to other vocations.
“I spent a lot of time in that barn, and milked a lot of cows over the years,” Doering said thoughtfully. “It’s going to seem strange not seeing that barn every day. But it was the right thing to do.”
You can contact Charlie Warner at
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