“It’s just an old barn.”  

And because that is what it has become, it and countless others like it are disappearing from our landscapes and our memories.  Their destruction has become a part of the transformation from rural to urban, from sleepy farm roads to suburban thoroughfares, and from farms to subdivisions.  

The one featured below is one of eleven original structures that were on our farm, seven of which still remain.  

It was here when my great-grandfather added this property to his landholdings in 1903.  And, like so many of its kind, it has seen better days.  

My father called it the “feed barn” – a name I heard my grandfather use, as well.  He told me it was called that because it’s what his daddy called it.  And so the name remains.  Like so many of its kind, it sits mostly in solitude today.  But, there was a day…

The faded remnants of a calendar still note the breeding schedules and birthdates of the registered Angus cattle the farm proudly offered for sale.  Bridles and bits, the leather now cracked and weathered and the metal works rusted, continue to remain hanging from a stall wall, once used to rein in the Shetland ponies and Quarter Horses that ran the farm’s meadows.  And the hole in the wall is still found at the back of the barn, put there in the 1950s so that hay could be fed into the grinder where it mixed with corn and other grains and was piped into a holding stall, providing a rich supplement to the grass-fed livestock.  (It was later purchased by Fred Creasy and used as the first grinder at his Westmoreland Feed Mill.)  

The barn stored hay in the loft – we were lucky enough to own hay elevators to transport the square bales from the wagons up to the loft – and that hay was dropped down to the livestock below in the feeding bins during the winter months.  Many a day was spent working cattle in the hall and stalls of the barn and in the corral outside.  A herd would be driven out of the fields to the barn yard and into the corral where groups of them would then be sent into the barn.  Behind closed doors they would be separated based on the job at hand.  My job was often to man the doors while my father and grandfather and others would be inside.  There was always great turmoil on both sides of the door as separated animals usually tried to reunite and curse words and cow manure were recklessly slung throughout the experience.  When calves were weaned, the barn served as the holding pen for them as they transitioned to straight hay and feed.  

For the cows that were experiencing difficulties in birthing their calves, the barn became their maternity ward.  They would be placed in a stall so that the process could be monitored.  Occasionally, an unborn calf had to be turned or pulled, a difficult and exhausting process for both mother, unborn calf, and us.  At such times, the words, “Let’s get Bodock” would be said.  

Bodock Cannon was an untrained expert in working with cattle in these situations and he spent many an hour in the old barn.  Bodock offered a lot of wit and wisdom in such times and he saved many a cow and calf in the barn.

For a boy and his friends growing up, the old barn offered endless opportunities for the imagination. Many a Yankee, German or Japanese soldier had their lives cut short in the vicious battles that swirled amongst the buildings (corn cobs with a big chicken feather inserted into the ends made for a deadly grenade; in the heat of battle, once the feather was pulled, one only had three seconds to lob it into the enemy machine gun nest before it exploded. I suffered many a heroic death while being shot all to pieces attempting to launch one of these before the three seconds had elapsed!) Other times, the barnyard was Tombstone or Dodge City from the Wild West. Whether I was an outlaw gunslinger or fearless lawman, I had my trusty six-shot BB pistol slung low in the holster on my hip and could wield it with deadly efficiency. Protecting the barnyard against ruthless cowboy gangs or a certain notorious rooster were important duties.

My generation wasn’t the only one to use the barn for other non-farm purposes. My grandfather and his brothers used the loft for more than merely the storing of hay. Fred Creasy told the story of one summer Sunday afternoon when family had gathered to visit. While older folks sat on the expansive front porch of my great-grandfather’s farmhouse, Fred and the other boys took to the old barn’s loft where they commenced to hold wrestling matches. Enough whooping and hollering happened so that it gained the attention of my great-grandmother who dispatched one of her older sons, Luther Creasy, to “calm those boys down”.

As Fred told it, Luther stood in front of the barn and called up to the boys, telling them his mother wanted them to stop carrying on and to quiet down. Luther’s younger brother, James, replied, “If you’re big enough to make us stop, come on up here.” Luther answered the challenge of his brother by climbing up the steps to the loft.

As Luther scaled the ladder, unbeknownst to him, James was standing to his back with a tobacco stick which he promptly swung as soon as Luther’s head emerged above the loft’s floor. Sensing that James was likely to swing again, Luther let loose a few choice words and promptly retreated. An impasse resulted with Luther not willing to risk another smack to the head with the stick and James unwilling to leave the loft for fear of certain retribution from his brother once on common ground. The boys did stop their antics soon afterwards, but the loft remained a site for boxing matches, sword fights with tobacco sticks, and the like.

It should be noted that at the time of the tobacco stick incident, Luther Creasy was a lawyer and state senator representing Sumner, Macon and Trousdale Counties in the state legislature and would wind up falling only a few votes shy of being elected Speaker of the Tennessee Senate and the Lieutenant Governor while the stick-swinging James Creasy would go on to become one of the youngest individuals to pass the state bar exam in Tennessee and an attorney for the United States Internal Revenue Service. Three other Creasy brothers also became attorneys, all graduating from Cumberland University’s School of Law.

Those of us to have been lucky enough to grow up on a working farm have collective memories that are similar. There’s a kinship with the land that is increasingly fleeting in modern America. The land – the farm – and all its parts is synonymous with the family that works it. To that family, it possesses a soul that is as much loved as all the other members of the family. Its why six generations have walked the acreage of our farm and told stories of happenings on just about every square inch to the next generation. When I walk the fields and cross the creeks, I can still see the faces and hear the voices of all those many folks who worked these lands; they worked the tobacco fields, planted and harvested wheat, oats, corn, and soybeans, hauled hay, herded cattle, sheared sheep, killed hogs, plucked chickens, raced horses, picked strawberries, wrestled with stubborn mules, mended fences, harvested timber, cut wood, repaired equipment, hunted quail, outwitted racoons, chased rabbits, fished the ponds, drank from the cool springs on a hot summer’s day, or merely found a good shade tree to sit under and whittle to enjoy the serenity of the place.

It was farms – the land – that anchored families, communities, and cultures. And the demise of that anchor has torn asunder the sense of place that once defined “how things used to be”.

But, to paraphrase the song, we are, indeed, paving paradise to put in a parking lot. These lands that remain vacant today are gold mines. Millions of acres each year are lost to development. The pressures felt by landowners to sell are intense and sometimes, families choose to do that for a variety of reasons. For most, it is an extremely difficult decision. It is a shame there are not meaningful financial incentives to keep a farm that are equal to the incentives that entice the owner to sell the farm. Such a policy could certainly help to slow the loss of farmland our country is facing. But that is beyond the scope of this writing. I’ll finish this by letting the Old Barn speak for itself with some photographs.