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Century-old, structure still ready for work

LIVERMORE - Barns, like the families that work inside them, rarely stay static. They grow, adapt and change inside and out depending on the needs of the day.

The barn that stands on Erik Underberg's farm near this central Humboldt County community began its life more than a century ago as a simple rectangular structure. Over the years, it grew to serve as a granary, livestock house and, most recently, proud heirloom.

"You don't think much about it, because it's just part of your home and you're using it, but there is a lot of history," said Erik Underberg's father, Kenny Underberg, who lived on the family farm since he was four years old. "If you worry about the barn at all it's as something you have to paint or put a roof on every so often, but we're proud it's still here."

While the original building date is in question Kenny Underberg knows his great-uncle owned the farm and used the barn as early as 1895. The farm, which includes its original farmhouse, built around 1880, and still used today, became the family home place.

The barn itself was likely built for livestock and feed storage. A number of subsequent additions and retrofits kept the building up-to-date with farming of the day.

Sometime around 1900 a lean-to corn crib was added to the barn's north side. Another retrofit occurred around 1920 adding a hay mow floor and a second lean-to was attached to the barn's south side.

The new space was used for keeping horses, while the main area of the barn was used for milking.

"What they started out with was a very basic barn. It's pretty small by today's standards," Kenny Underberg said. "But we've always done what we needed to keep it up for whatever purpose we needed at the time.

"That's not bad when you consider the original barn has been here for more than 100 years."

During Kenny Underberg's farm career the barn was adapted at different times to raise hogs and cattle. Eventually the north addition fell out of use as a corn crib, but continued to be used as storage space.

When Erik Underberg took over the farm, the barn continued to be used as part of a cattle operation. The most significant came in the early 2000s when the building's original roof and siding were replaced with lower maintenance steel.

A few years later the Underbergs' century barn received a little bit of decoration with the addition of a barn quilt facing the road. While the building is now used primarily for storage, Kenny Underberg said he feels proud that it is still a part of the farm, because its history.

"It looks very nice now and it honors all of the work that was done on that spot," he said. "And of course it's still a good building and ready to be used when we need it."

Contact Kevin Stillman by e-mail at stillman.kw@gmail.com.