Later this fall, a barn that stood for over a century on a Washington County farmstead will be relocated to the Kalona Historical Village. Plans call for it to be located at the west end of the village, adjacent to the Ag Building, where it will allow the Historical Society additional space to tell the story of Kalona’s agricultural past.

And yes, it will fit, managing director Nancy Roth assures.

With the railroad exhibit, complete with new rail and boxcar, still a work in progress, some wonder why the Historical Village would add a barn to the grounds so soon. Expanding and leveling-up is good, but is this too fast?

“It’s happened very fast,” Roth acknowledges, but some opportunities are once in a lifetime, and when a local businessman offered to donate the over 100-year-old barn to the Historical Society, Roth didn’t want to pass the offer up.

Although the barn would come at no cost, moving it has a high price tag. The logistics of power lines and transport, among other details, would cost the Historical Society about $300,000, as best they could estimate. But if they couldn’t raise the funds quickly, the barn would be demolished; the businessman had plans for the land.

Roth knew fundraising that much money fast was going to be a long shot. There was really only one way to do that: petition the Washington County Riverboat Foundation (WCRF).

On July 31, the WCRF board heard the Historical Society’s case and was swayed; they awarded the Historical Society a $300,000 emergency grant to relocate the barn.

As for what happens next, that remains an open question.

“Our goal is to get it here safe and sound,” Roth says. “Other than me making a giant list of things that are possibilities. . . it could take years before we figure it out, but at least it’s here.”

One thing that is known is that the barn will become a museum of agriculture. While specific exhibits have not been planned yet, telling the history of farming in the Kalona area is the goal.

“Farming was one of the early reasons the town thrived, and that’s something that we don’t tell here. So that’s what this barn’s purpose is going to be,” Roth says.

Climate control for the barn is unlikely given its height and size, so whatever collections – perhaps farming implements, a hay trolly, or things of that nature – go into the space, they will have to tolerate a range of temperatures.

And then, of course, there is the barn itself: a typical, although especially well-preserved, example of what an average Washington County farming family would have been accustomed to. For those who had such an upbringing, it may evoke a sense of nostalgia.

It may take years to develop, but eventually Kalona will be home to a rare and unique attraction: a barn museum, only 10 of which currently exist in the state.