Wilson Barn | |
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Location | NE corner of Middlebelt and W. Chicago Rds., Livonia, Michigan |
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Coordinates | 42°21′53″N83°19′55″W / 42.36472°N 83.33194°W |
Area | 4.8 acres (1.9 ha) |
Built | 1888 |
Architect | John H. Paterson |
Architectural style | Bank Barn |
NRHP reference No. | 73000962 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | December 12, 1973 |
Designated MSHS | November 15, 1973 [2] |
The Wilson Barn (also known as the Ira Wilson Dairy Barn) is a barn located at the northeast corner of Middlebelt and W. Chicago Roads in Livonia, Michigan right by Emerson Middle School. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1973. [1] [2] This was the beginning of the Ira Wilson & Sons Dairy Company, a now defunct company (which partnered for a time with Kroger and was ultimately acquired by Melody Farms in 1980). There were several large iconic cow's head sculptures, [3] which were fixtures in the Detroit metropolitan area. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
Ira Wilson was born in 1867, and began his career in dairy farming at an early age, working on the farm owned by his family since 1847. [2] He built a barn on this site in 1888; in 1919 the barn burned and he built the present structure on the foundations of the earlier barn. [2] Wilson eventually established a million-dollar dairy, creamery, and trucking business, the Ira Wilson & Sons Dairy, [2] [10] and served for two terms as Wayne County sheriff. Wilson died in 1944, and the lower level of the barn was converted for use as a horse stable in the same year. [2]
As of 2011, the Wilson Barn is managed by "The Friends of the Barn," a volunteer group. [11]
The barn is a post-and-beam structure faced with wood siding, resting on a stone foundation and having a gambrel roof. [2] A silo made of dark brown, glazed tile is attached to the barn. [2]
The friends of the Wilson Barn host many events at the barn including a farmers market every saturday from the first Saturday in June until October, pumpkinfest, a twice monthly community board game night, an annual chess tournament, and other various events including 2 car shows.[ citation needed ]
Livonia is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. A western suburb of Detroit, Livonia is located roughly 20 miles (32.2 km) northwest of downtown Detroit. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 95,535. Originally organized as Livonia Township in 1835, it was incorporated as a city in 1950.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Wayne County, Michigan.
Livonia Marketplace is an open-air shopping mall in the Detroit suburb of Livonia, Michigan. Opened in 2010, the center is anchored by Kohl's and Walmart. It occupies the site of the former Livonia Mall, which was an enclosed mall built in 1964. Livonia Mall lost the majority of its tenants in the 2000s, including its previous anchor stores of Crowley's, Sears, Mervyns, and Children's Palace. The mall was closed in May 2008, with only the Sears remaining from the original property. Sears closed in April 2020.
The University of Illinois Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District, also known as South Farm, is a designated historic district in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is located on the campus of the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois. The district consists of eight contributing structures and several non-contributing structures. The district was designated in 1994 when it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of the Multiple Property Submission concerning Round Barns in Illinois. Three of the district's buildings are early 20th century round barns constructed between 1908 and 1912. The district covers a total area of 6 acres (2 ha).
The three University of Illinois round barns played a special role in the promotion and popularity of the American round barn. They are located in Urbana Township, on the border of the U.S. city of Urbana, Illinois and on the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The University of Illinois was home to one of the Agricultural Experiment Stations, located at U.S. universities, which were at the heart of the promotion of the round barn. At least one round barn in Illinois was built specifically after its owner viewed the barns at the university. Though originally an experiment the three barns helped to lead the way for round barn construction throughout the Midwest, particularly in Illinois. The barns were listed as contributing properties to the U of I Experimental Dairy Farm Historic District, which was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1994.
The Athens State Hospital Cow Barn is a historic agricultural building on the grounds of the former state hospital in Athens, Ohio, United States. One of several agricultural buildings associated with the hospital, it has been named a historic site.
The University of Wisconsin Dairy Barn is a building located on the campus of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Built in 1897, the building played an important role in the field of dairy science during the 20th century. It has been used both as a teaching facility and as a site for agricultural research. It is significant for its association with the single-grain experiment, performed from 1907 to 1911 by Stephen Babcock. The UW Dairy Barn was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2005.
Oxon Cove Park and Oxon Cove Farm is a national historic district that includes a living farm museum operated by the National Park Service, and located at Oxon Hill, Prince George's County, Maryland. It is part of National Capital Parks-East. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
North Oaks Farm, also known as Hill Farm, is currently an open-air museum in North Oaks, Minnesota, United States, preserving buildings of a 3,300-acre (1,300 ha) demonstration farm established by railroad magnate James J. Hill in 1883. Elements of the farm were listed on the National Register of Historic Places as James J. Hill's North Oaks Farm, Dairy Building in 1999.
Castle Farms is a special events facility located in Charlevoix, Michigan. It was constructed in 1918 by Albert Loeb, who was the Vice President of Sears, Roebuck and Company, and it was designed by Arthur Heun.
The Hoard's Dairyman Farm, just north of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, was purchased in 1899 by W. D. Hoard, a former governor of Wisconsin. Hoard used the farm as a laboratory for testing ideas for his magazine Hoard's Dairyman, like the use of alfalfa for feeding dairy cattle.
The Michigan State Fair Riding Coliseum, Dairy Cattle Building, and Agricultural Building are three buildings located on the grounds of the Michigan State Fair in Detroit, Michigan. They were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Brook Farm is a historic country estate farm at 4203 Twenty Mile Stream Road in Cavendish, Vermont. It includes one of the state's grandest Colonial Revival mansion houses, and surviving outbuildings of a model farm of the turn of the 20th century. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993. The property is now home to the Brook Farm Vineyard.
Greenmead Historical Park, also known as Greenmead Farms, is a 3.2-acre (1.3 ha) historic park located at 38125 Base Line Rd., Livonia, Michigan. It includes the 1841 Greek Revival Simmons House, six other structures contributing to the historic nature of the property, and additional buildings moved from other locations. Greenmead Farms was designated a Michigan State Historic Site in 1971 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
The Goll Homestead is a historic farm complex in far western Fulton County, Ohio, United States. Located in German Township northwest of Archbold, the farm has been declared a historic site because of its role in the region's settlement.
The Dougan Round Barn in Beloit, Wisconsin, United States, was a round barn that was built in 1911. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It was demolished in 2012.
The Louden Machinery Company was an American engineering, manufacturing and design company based in Fairfield, Iowa. Founded by William Louden, the company in its early years manufactured and sold the patented hay carrier that he invented in 1867. The company later expanded into a wide variety of farm equipment and, in 1906, began an Architecture Department that reportedly designed more than 25,000 barns from 1906 to 1939. During World War I, Louden's monorail equipment carrier began to be applied to industrial and military applications. By the 1920s, much of the company's revenues were derived from industrial applications of its monorail equipment carriers.
The Jenness Farm is a historic farm property at 626 Pickering Road in Rochester, New Hampshire. It consists of about 190 acres (77 ha) in Rochester and adjacent Dover, and has been in continuous ownership by the Jenness family since 1837. It was, at the time of its 2001 listing on the National Register of Historic Places, one of just ten farms in the city with intact land and buildings.
The Bedrud–Olson Farmstead is a highly intact tobacco and dairy farm with surviving buildings built between 1856 and 1915 in Christiana, Dane County, Wisconsin. It was added to the State and the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
The Eric and Jerome Skindrud Farm is a farm started by Norwegian immigrants in Springdale, Wisconsin with intact farm buildings as old as 1876. The farm lies in a big valley prone to erosion and was early to try out erosion control dams and planting crops in contour strips. In 1994 the farm was added to the State and the National Register of Historic Places.
The cow head had its fifteen minutes of fame when it appeared in the 2002 Eminem film 8 Mile. The film's producers pried the plywood off the long abandoned ice cream store's windows and gave both the building and the cow a fresh coat of paint. In the film, violent jay and his posse drive in front of the building and shoot the giant cow between the eyes with a pink paintball. The owner of the building at the time didn't want his cow defaced, so the paintball splat was created with computer graphics.
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