CurlyShavings

The Cuyahoga County Bicentennial Barn is in the middle of a Cleveland suburb.

My youngest son and I drove out here this morning to "capture it". He says he doesn't want to visit each and every one in Ohio (there are 88 counties), but we'll get the ones that don't require too much travel out of our way.

We drove about fifty miles round-trip for this one and coupled it with a few errands in downtown Cleveland.

In the process, the boy is learning more about maps, how to read and orient them and when to sing out that a turn is coming up.

If you decide to visit, turn off W 130th onto Wengatz Drive, however, the side nearest the barn is no parking so continue to the end of Wengatz, do a u-turn and come back toward W 130th.

Resources

We're using a few things as resources. Christina Wilkinson's Bicentennial Barns of Ohio is what started this whole quest and has many pictures, directions and some history of each edifice. Mike's Ohio Bicentennial Barns website on the subject also provides directions and longitude and latitude for each. Of course, no road trip would be complete without using Google Maps for some part of the journey.

The Summit County Bicentennial Barn is located in an area that appears to be converting from farmland to more developed property.

We were already planning a visit to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park to pick up our Thanksgiving turkey at Goatfeathers Point Farm and do a bit of shopping at the Appalachian Outfitters Peninsula store, so this was fairly "close" for us (approximately sixty miles, round-trip).

The painted side of the barn is visible from Route 8 and I suspect that stopping for pictures isn't wise. We stopped on Hudson Drive and I walked around the barn to the west for my picture.

No doubt I was trespassing.

Resources

We're using a few things as resources. Christina Wilkinson's Bicentennial Barns of Ohio is what started this whole quest and has many pictures, directions and some history of each edifice. Mike's Ohio Bicentennial Barns website on the subject also provides directions and longitude and latitude for each. Of course, no road trip would be complete without using Google Maps for some part of the journey.

The Lake County Bicentennial Barn is in the middle of homes and businesses not very far from Lake Erie.

We planned this barn around a trip to Willoughby Brewing Company for lunch with Mr. Lee who lives in the area and accompanied us to the barn. The round trip total is approximately fifty miles.

The painted side of the barn is visible from Munson Road but I don't recommend stopping there. A small church is just to the west of the barn and we took advantage of their ample parking and midweek emptiness for a few minutes. While Munson is busy, there is a bike lane that give pedestrians just that added bit of space.

Afterward, we took the long way back to Mr. Lee's house and visited a very pretty yellow barn on Baldwin Road, just north of the Episcopal Church there.

Resources

We're using a few things as resources. Christina Wilkinson's Bicentennial Barns of Ohio is what started this whole quest and has many pictures, directions and some history of each edifice. Mike's Ohio Bicentennial Barns website on the subject also provides directions and longitude and latitude for each. Of course, no road trip would be complete without using Google Maps for some part of the journey.

In 2003, Ohio celebrated its 200th anniversary as a state. To observe the event, a barn was chosen from each county to have an anniversary logo painted on a prominent side. All the barns were painted by barn artist Scott Hagan.

All the barns have already been cataloged at the Ohio Barns web site.

We will be adding markers to this map as we plan out our visits to them.

If you're viewing this map and it isn't showing barns, please view this posting by itself.

The Geauga County Bicentennial Barn is in the middle of rolling, fertile northeast Ohio farmland.

We had taken in the Great Geauga County Fair and thought we'd take a detour home to see this Bicentennial Barn.

The barn is on the west side of the road (Madison Road) and faces east, so an afternoon photo shoot was not ideal (hint: go in the morning).

There's a fairly wide gravel driveway leading up to the barn and it is there that I decided to park.

These barns are huge and are required to be visible from roads and such. But they're not really public property. But you can't expect to have something this interesting on your land without some sight-seers, either!

As I was walking up, a pickup truck arrived at the farmhouse and so I waved. Two small boys tumbled out and tore over to see me. I asked if it was OK to take pictures of their barn and they were quite happy about that. I recognized their shirts as some 4-H shirts that we'd been seeing at the fair and I asked if they'd been there. Mom then suggested that they ask if I was interested in taking a picture of their frog (they'd been frog-racing at the fair).

I'm not sure what was up next because when looked up, they were all gone.

There are 88 counties in Ohio, so we've got a ways to go.