McCauley and Meyer Barns

Last updated

McCauley and Meyer Barns
Meyer Barns.jpg
The Meyer Barns
USA California location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Nearest city El Portal, California
Coordinates 37°42′0″N119°45′18″W / 37.70000°N 119.75500°W / 37.70000; -119.75500
Arealess than one acre
Built1870
ArchitectJames McCauley, George Meyer
Architectural styleMorman Pole Barn
NRHP reference No. 78000353 [1]
Added to NRHPJune 15, 1978

The McCauley and Meyer Barns in Yosemite National Park are the last barns in the park that retain their original characteristics as structures built by homesteaders. The McCauley barn and the two Meyer barns represent different construction techniques and styles of design.

The McCauley Barn was built about 1883 by Irish-born James McCauley, who operated hotels in the Yosemite Valley. McCauley's ranch was to be his winter home, since Glacier Point, where he operated the Glacier Point Mountain House, was not suitable for winter living. McCauley purchased the land in 1883 and began to live full-time at the ranch in 1897. McCauley's son Fred inherited the ranch after James' death in an automobile accident in 1911. Fred dispersed the property, which became known as "Foresta" and was unoccupied after 1955. The National Park Service acquired the ranch in 1974. The barn is a wood structure, with a log cribwork core using V-notched joints, measuring 40 feet (12 m) by 80 feet (24 m). A long center bay is flamed by two more open bays along the long axis of the barn. The overhanging gable roof structure is peeled logs, once covered with wood shingles but now covered with sheet metal. The logs were not chinked, and are presently sheathed with vertical boards. The design is unusual. The "Mormon Pole Barn" style dates to the 1850s in the Genesee Valley. [2]

George Meyer operated a homestead established by his brother Henry in the 1870s in Big Meadow. A ship carpenter in Germany, Meyer married James McCauley's niece Elizabeth in 1900, acquiring the McCauley Ranch in 1923. Meyer Barn No. 1 is a saltbox-shaped timber-framed structure built in the early 1880s. The principal portion of the barn measures 30 feet (9.1 m) by 20 feet (6.1 m), with a lean-to addition 30 feet (9.1 m) by 16 feet (4.9 m). The barn is sheathed in vertical wood siding with a steeply-pitched metal roof. The framing is believed to have been built flat and raised into position in five bents. [2]

Meyer Barn No. 2, nearby Barn No. 1 in Big Meadow, is similar in character to the McCauley Barn, measuring about 50 feet (15 m) square, with a hipped roof. It was built in the late 1870s. The center consists of a 25-foot (7.6 m) high saddle-notched log crib that supports the center of the steep roof. The crib was surrounded by stalls for livestock on three sides. The exterior wall is a frame structure covered in vertical board sheathing. The log roof structure was covered with shingles, now by sheet metal. [2]

The barns were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 15, 1978. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cunningham Cabin</span> Historic house in Wyoming, United States

The Cunningham Cabin is a double-pen log cabin in Grand Teton National Park in the US state of Wyoming. It was built as a homestead in Jackson Hole and represents an adaptation of an Appalachian building form to the West. The cabin was built just south of Spread Creek by John Pierce Cunningham, who arrived in Jackson Hole in 1885 and subsisted as a trapper until he established the Bar Flying U Ranch in 1888. The Cunninghams left the valley for Idaho in 1928, when land was being acquired for the future Grand Teton National Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TA Ranch Historic District</span> Historic district in Wyoming, United States

The TA Ranch was the site of the principal events of the Johnson County Range War in 1892. The TA was established in 1882 as one of the first ranches in Johnson County, Wyoming. The TA is the only intact site associated with the range war, with trenches used by both sides still visible and scars on the nearby buildings. The ranch also documents the expansion and development of cattle ranching in Wyoming.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Buckner Homestead Historic District</span> Historic district in Washington, United States

The Buckner Homestead Historic District, near Stehekin, Washington in Lake Chelan National Recreation Area incorporates a group of structures relating to the theme of early settlement in the Lake Chelan area. Representing a time period of over six decades, from 1889 to the 1950s, the district comprises 15 buildings, landscape structures and ruins, and over 50 acres (200,000 m2) of land planted in orchard and criss-crossed by hand-dug irrigation ditches. The oldest building on the farm is a cabin built in 1889. The Buckner family bought the farm in 1910 and remained there until 1970, when the property was sold to the National Park Service. The Buckner Cabin was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The rest of the Buckner farm became a historic district in 1989. Today, the National Park Service maintains the Buckner homestead and farm as an interpretive center to give visitors a glimpse at pioneer farm life in the Stehekin Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faraway Ranch Historic District</span> Historic district in Arizona, United States

The Faraway Ranch Historic District is part of the Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona, and preserves an area associated with the final conflicts with the local Apache, one of the last frontier settlements, and in particular, its association with the people who promoted the establishment of the Chiricahua National Monument. Faraway Ranch is located in Bonita Canyon, which lies at an approximate altitude of 5160 feet and opens in a southwesterly direction into the Sulphur Springs Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Boyd Homestead Group</span> United States historic place

The Charles Boyd Homestead is a group of three buildings that make up a pioneer ranch complex. It is located in Deschutes County north of Bend, Oregon, United States. The ranch buildings were constructed by Charles Boyd between 1905 and 1909. Today, the three surviving structures are the only ranch buildings that date back to the earliest period of settlement in the Bend area. The Boyd Homestead is listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edisen Fishery</span> United States historic place

The Edisen Fishery is a fishery located in Rock Harbor in the Isle Royale National Park in Michigan. It was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1976 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tyson McCarter Place</span> Historic house in Tennessee, United States

The Tyson McCarter Place was a homestead located in the Great Smoky Mountains of Sevier County, in the U.S. state of Tennessee. Before the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1930s, the homestead belonged to mountain farmer Jacob Tyson McCarter (1878–1950), a descendant of some of the area's earliest European settlers. While McCarter's house is no longer standing, several outbuildings— including a barn, springhouse, corn crib, and smokehouse— have survived, and have been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maden Hall Farm</span> Historic house in Tennessee, United States

Maden Hall Farm, also called the Fermanagh-Ross Farm, is a historic farm near the U.S. city of Greeneville, Tennessee. Established in the 1820s, the farmstead consists of a farmhouse and six outbuildings situated on the remaining 17 acres (6.9 ha) of what was once a 300-acre (120 ha) antebellum farm. Maden Hall has been designated a century farm and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David L. Shirk Ranch</span> United States historic place

The David L. Shirk Ranch is a historic ranch located in the Guano Valley of eastern Lake County, Oregon, United States. The ranch was originally homesteaded in 1881. It was purchased by David L. Shirk in 1883. He operated the ranch until 1914. The property was acquired by the United States Government in 1942. The ranch is now administered by the Bureau of Land Management. The remaining historic ranch buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hodgdon Homestead Cabin</span> Historic house in California, United States

The Hodgdon Homestead Cabin was built by Jeremiah Hodgdon in 1879 in the Aspen Valley area of what became Yosemite National Park. The two-story log cabin, measuring 22 feet (6.7 m) by 30 feet (9.1 m), was located in an inholding in the park, owned by Hodgdon's descendants. In the 1950s the family proposed to demolish the structure. The National Park Service acquired it and moved it to its Pioneer Yosemite History Center at Wawona, where the restored cabin is part of an exhibit on early settlement and development of the Yosemite area. In addition to housing Hogdon, the cabin housed workers on the Great Sierra Wagon Road in the 1880s, as a patrol cabin for U.S. Army troops who managed the new national park in the 1890s, and as a historic landmark at the old Aspen Valley Resort.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chris Jorgensen Studio</span> United States historic place

The Chris Jorgensen Studio is a one-room log building, built in 1904 as an artist's studio for Chris Jorgensen in the Yosemite Valley. Jorgensen, an instructor and assistant director of the California School of Fine Arts, arrived in Yosemite in the 1890s. Jorgensen studied and depicted local Native Americans from 1899, collecting native basketwork. The National Park Service acquired the Jorgensen Studio in 1919, calling it the Yosemite Museum. Jorgensen donated his basket collection to the museum in 1923. Jorgensen's widow, Angela Ghiardelli, donated many of Jorgensen's works to the museum following his death in 1935.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soda Springs Cabin</span> Historic structure in Yosemite National Park, California

The Soda Springs Cabin is a historic structure in Yosemite National Park in the US, built over Soda Springs. It was built around the year 1889 by John Baptist Lembert, the first white settler on the Tuolumne Meadows area of Yosemite. Lembert had filed a claim to 160 acres (65 ha) in Tuolumne Meadows in 1885 after spending three summers in the area with a flock of angora goats. He built a log cabin directly over the largest soda spring in the area. Although the property was within the park boundaries, Lembert received a patent to the property in 1895. Lembert's cabin was built along the Great Sierra Wagon Road over the Sierra Nevada. He also became a guide for tourists in the high country, gaining a reputation as a naturalist and entomologist. He spent the winter months near Cascade Creek in the Yosemite Valley.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">El Tovar Stables</span> United States historic place

The El Tovar Stables at the south rim of the Grand Canyon were built about 1904, at the same time the nearby El Tovar Hotel was built, to house the animals used in general transportation around the park. Collectively called the "transportation department" in the early 20th century, the three structures comprised a horse barn or stable, a mule barn and a blacksmith shop.

Dodd Homestead was a historic home and farmstead located near Rehoboth Beach, Sussex County, Delaware. It was a modified "L"-shaped, wood frame dwelling, the earliest portion of which dated to about 1830. The main house was a long, rectangular, two-story, single-pile structure in a vernacular Federal / Greek Revival style. It had a wing, that was originally one-story. but later raised to a full two-stories, probably in the mid-19th century. There was also a two-story rear wing. The house was sheathed in hand-hewn cypress shingles and had stuccoed brick interior end chimneys. Contributing 19th century outbuildings included a low brick ash shed, milk house, wood shed, storage shed, a small shed-roofed poultry house, stable, barn, a large gable-roofed dairy barn, corn crib, and carriage house.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roba Ranch</span> United States historic place

The Roba Ranch is a pioneer ranch located near the small unincorporated community of Paulina in Crook County, Oregon. The ranch is named for George and Mary Roba, sheep ranchers who acquired the property in 1892. Most of the important ranch buildings were constructed by the Roba family between about 1892 and 1910. Today, the ranch covers 1,480 acres (6.0 km2) and is privately owned. The ranch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Conrad Hutzler Farm</span> United States historic place

The George Conrad Hutzler Farm, also known as the Conrad Hutzler Farm, is a historic farmstead located on South Manitou Island in Lake Michigan. One of the farm's owners, George Conrad Hutzler, Jr., was the first to experiment with hybridization of Rosen rye and Michelite pea beans; within 20 years of his experimentation, 80% of the pea bean crop in the United States was descended from Michelite seeds grown on South Manitou Island. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kromberg Barn</span> United States historic place

The Kromberg Barn is a historic barn on East Pond Road in Smithfield, Maine. With an estimated construction date of the 1810s, it is one of the oldest barns in the area, and is architecturally rare as an example of a gambrel-roof barn built using older framing methods associated with traditional English barns. The barn was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Dillard Homestead</span> Historic house in Arkansas, United States

The William Dillard Homestead is a historic homestead property in rural northeastern Stone County, Arkansas. It is located on the Round Bottom area northeast of Mountain View, on a plateau above the river's flood plain. It consists of two log structures, both now used as barns, that were built c. 1837, and are the oldest standing structures in the county. A single-pen log cabin stands on rough stone piers, and is covered by a gable roof. The walls are rough-hewn logs, joined by V notches. A shed-roof ell extends on the southern side of the structure, and more modern box-constructed sheds are attached to the north and east sides. A double crib barn stands across the road from the cabin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Hanaford Farmstead</span> United States historic place

The David Hanaford Farmstead is a historic farm in Monticello Township, Minnesota, United States. It was first settled in 1855 and features a farmhouse built in 1870 and a barn from around the same time. The farmstead was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 for having local significance in the themes of agriculture and exploration/settlement. It was nominated for being "an excellent example of an early Wright County farmstead developed by a pioneer family from New England."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colter Ranch Historic District</span> Historic district in Arizona, United States

The Colter Ranch Historic District consists of twelve buildings in a rural setting near Eagar, Arizona. The site is located in the Amity Valley, which itself is part of Round Valley ; the Little Colorado River runs along the one side of the district. Most of the buildings date from between 1904 and 1930, the period during which Fred Colter resided on the residence.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 Hart, Leslie Starr; Wilson, Merrill Ann (August 1976). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form: McCauley and Meyer Barns" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved July 1, 2011.