Barn theme highlights fifth historical society calendar

    Barns have been an important part of the landscape in rural America, and are the featured subject in the 2021 Chase County Historical Society calendar.
    For Charley Colton, historical society president, coordinating the calendar each year is a labor of love.
    Finding subject matter wasn’t difficult, he said.
    Colton used photos from historical society files, as well as from individuals whose families once had barns on their Chase County farms and ranches.
    The month’s pages in the calendar picture barns, large and small, from the Imperial area, Champion, Lamar and Wauneta.
    What was interesting to Colton in putting together this year’s fifth annual calendar was the size of some of them.
    “The size of some of these barns was pretty awesome,” he said.
    “I was surprised at how many of the big ones there were.”
    Unfortunately, not many of the massive ones are still standing, he said. Once farmers and ranchers got away from using horses and mules, the big barns weren’t needed anymore.
    A good example of the large barns were ones owned by the Kilpatrick family, Colton said.
    “They did a lot of railroad work and wintered their mules and horses here, so needed those larger barns,” he said.
    One of the Kilpatrick barns graces the November 2021 pages, and was located on the ranch where John Maddux and family now reside, north of Imperial. The barn is no longer standing.
    The Kimberlings also built huge barns, Colton said. Pictures of Kimberling family barns  appear on the pages of three months—March, June and October.
    The December 2021 pages have a picture of probably the oldest barn in the calendar, he noted. It’s an old sod barn in the Wauneta area on the Alfred Ditton place.
    Two other months will find photos of former livery barns  that operated in Imperial.

To read more go to: https://etypeservices.com/Imperial%20RepublicanID359/