The Schnee Barn

This barn still graces a beautiful yard in the Conquerville area though it’s over 100 years old.

It was built in 1916 by Henry, Harold Schnee’s father*. During the fieldwork season it served as a place to rest and feed his dad’s 16 work horses. Eight were used in the morning, then after lunch the other eight worked the field. Harold remembers his grandma noting that the horses were lucky: they quit at noon but the driver worked all day!

At other times the horses grazed in the big pasture. “Dad had a pretty good set up. He kept his pony in the lush-grass coulee near the barn, “Krissy’s Pasture”. He’d call her and she willingly came for him to get the work horses when they were needed.”

The lean-to on the north side was built in 1948 to store that year’s rye crop in both the built-on portions of the barn. He had seeded every acre into Fall rye that year, a foolish move the neighbors thought. Fall rye gets a head start in the spring. Come July, the wheat crops in the area were burning up while Mr. Schnee was harvesting a bumper crop. It paid off his debts when rye sold for $3 or more per bushel (wheat only $1.50).  The granary ends of the barn stored rye for the next few years (about five) until the price of rye went down to less than $1 a bushel.

This building served as a dairy barn in the 50’s and early 60’s; from the 80’s until 2012 it was a perfect calving barn. To this day it is still useful storage space.