Name/Title
Carrother's Barn 1Description
Bank Barn
Originally known as a Pennsylvania Bank Barn or Sweitzer barn, this barn style was one of the most prominent barn types found in the United States prior to 1880. However, they earned the new name bank barn because one side is built into the bank of the hill, allowing livestock and wagons to be easily driven into the barn.
Bank barns range from just twenty feet to over a hundred; they are two-story and rectangular in form allowing for multiple farm functions under a single roof. The multiple levels would permit for manure and feed to be stored on the base level, along with a few cattle. Livestock would be stored on the level that was even with the ground outside to allow for easy movement of animals and hay.
The remaining room in the top of the barn allowed for hay storage. When the livestock needed to be fed, hay could be pushed from the loft to the animals below; when the animals needed to pass said hay, it would fall to level below, allowing gravity to do most of the work.