OLD BARN № 052

This very old barn along SC Highway 135 in southern Pickens County appears to be very old, and is showing the ravages of time, wind, and weather. I have often wished to know how long these barns I photograph have been standing and how many decades of freezing winter temperatures, then baking in the hot, humid, moist-heat of southern summers, being kicked by mules and bumped by tractors, children throwing their baseballs against it, and all the other things they've endured.

The above photo was made as spring was beginning to show itself a few years ago, and the following photo shows the same barn on a cold, overcast winter's day. Recent peeks at the barn from a 'Steetside' view on both Google and BING Maps shows that the entire left-side of the structure has fallen — everything including that open, ramshackled area and leftward. The central portion and right-hand side are still standing, tall and proud, as they were when they posed for these photos.

This barn is not very far from the last four barns I shared, as shown in the following screen capture from Google Maps.

^{screenshot from Google Maps}

And the strangest thing happened! As I was preparing the draft of this post, I received a DM on Discord from Ren of @xcountytravelers sharing a photo of another barn that they had seen in their travels recently. That barn has the same basic structure as this one — a tall central area, with two "wings" on each side under downward-sloping roof lines, although the "wings" in Ren's barn are much larger than on this barn I found.

Ren says this barn is in the countryside close to Chelsea, Oklahoma. I like the large field adjacent to the building, and those beautiful trees nearby! Thank you for sharing that with me, Ren! 😊