FARM BUILDING SOUTH OF MARVELL ARKANSAS

 

 

Located next to series of grain silos, this ancient building is a mystery to me.

Most farm buildings are designed in an economical, nearly austere manner; they are working structures meant to fulfill some specific purpose on the working farm. A barn is designed to shelter animals and hay. Silos store grain. Sheds store equipment.

This looks like a combination of a residence, barn, store and church, and no matter how I look at it, I can't for the life of me figure its purpose.

The front entrance is not just a door, but a separate vestibule with small storage rooms to the side; in some ways it resembles a church entry. The doors are symmetrical on each side of the main structure and lead to small rooms, only one which has a round steel chimney pipe. Each room originally had a single window, and all the windows have long since been framed in and boarded over with wood clapboards matching the rest of the structure. This indicates that the original purpose of the building has been changed.

My best guess is that it once housed several small apartments, possibly for farm workers. The rooms are small, floored with wood and have no connection to one another. There is, however, no sign of electricity or plumbing. It is possible that it predates the electrification of this part of Arkansas, or that the workers weren't deemed important enough to provide such luxuries. A long-gone outhouse likely sat nearby if this was a residence.

The doorways are very tall for such a purpose, as are the ceilings. They seem particularly unsuited for housing farm workers in an unheated room, though there was likely little work to do when it was cold.

My favorite Vestige is the collapsed barge rafter on the front of the main structure. A barge rafter is the last rafter on the roof, and acts as the support for the extended roof decking, creating an overhanging eave.

In most buildings, the wood decking that sheathes the roof extends out to the barge rafter, and the decking actually supports the barge rafter, which often has no structural support underneath.

In this building, however, the roof decking ends at last rafter above the outside wall and a short run of decking above the barge rafter is actually resting on the rafter itself; instead of running back to attachment points on other rafters, the short decking boards end at the outside wall, creating a hinge. And since the barge rafter has no support underneath, it has collapsed nicely. The same thing has happened to the barge rafter on the opposite side.

Perhaps the thing was built by farm workers with no understanding of the inherent problem. Its underpinning has apparently failed (look at the undulating sway), so it may be an extreme example of vernacular style. No training in building but needing a structure, in this case (my supposition, not fact). It is still a handsome structure, and attention was paid to its construction.

The building appears to be of early 20th century design.