h Cement Ring Discovered "inside" Barn g

What the Heck is That?

Many people have owned the stone barn over the past 100 years, but did they know what laid beneath its surface inside the stone barn?

Roy and JoAnne Wilcox were neighbor's of the Frysh Brother's and rented the stone barn from them from around 1982 to 2004.  They raised their heifers there and also stored machinery.  It was during this time that Roy discovered this cement ring below the surface of the dirt barn floor.

When the town bought the barn, nobody knew this ring was there until after Brander Construction Technology began doing their research for the Historical Structures Report they are doing for the the stone barn.  Part of Brander's research included speaking to people that had past connections to the barn.  Late last Fall Don Kraft, from Brander, had Roy Wilcox come to the barn to explain to him what he used the barn for, and what modifications he had made to it.  It was during this time that Roy showed Don, and others from the Stone Barn and Park committees, where this ring was buried.

It puzzled everyone.  What could it be?  Most of us have concluded that it is probably the base for a wooden stave silo from the early 1900's.  Another possibility was that it was used for a cistern (used to collect water).  Maybe it was for a silo that was there before the stone barn was built.

In the early days, inside silos were not uncommon.  They were put inside the barn to help keep the feed inside it from freezing.  But they took up valuable space. 

We know for a fact that the concrete silo that still stands on outside the south side of the barn was built around the early 1920's.  The stone barn was built in 1903, so we believe that this ring was installed sometime in the early 1900's. 

So now what do we do with it?  Our Stone Barn committee has a few ideas in mind.  We know for sure that we do NOT want to cover it us with a floor.  Instead, we want to incorporate it somehow into the floor plan.

Reconstructing a wooden stave silo would be very misleading, and would give the impression to others that there was definitely a silo there at one time, and that we knew what it looked like, which we do not have any evidence of either at this point.

Dan Przybylski, a lifetime resident of Chase, strongly believes the ring was for a stave silo.  When I told him that one of our committees ideas was to install a bar/concession stand inside the ring (still showing the ring), he suggested that we build a 4-5 foot wooden stave silo with a bar top over it to represent that there was once a silo there.

Another idea was to put plexi-glass to allow it to be viewed, and then build the rest of the barn flooring around it.

We know for a fact that there were two wooden stave silos on the west side of the stone barn, on the outside of it.  According to Paul Frysh, who is a brother to Casey and Stanley Frysh who owned the barn from 1954 - 2004, the two outside wooden stave silos were almost identical to the wooden stave silo on the Frysh Brother's homestead farm next door, which is still standing.  So we at least know what those silos looked like.  If we decide to build a bar/concession stand on the ring, it could at least replicate the wooden stave silos that were outside the stone barn at one time.

Bob Fay, and Archeologist from Two Rivers, recommends that we have the ring surveyed to help determine if there is a base inside the hole, and to see if any other types of clues or artifacts can be found inside-and-around the ring to help determine its purpose.  Bob also wants to survey around the doors and windows in the barn, as well as certain areas of the property.  The Jeffris Family Foundation will be giving the town a grant that will pay for 50% of the archeological survey's.

If you have any suggestions as to what we should do with this ring, please e-mail me your comments by clicking HERE.