Historic Camp Polk barn "going south"

The old Hindman barn is leaning 12 degrees to the south.

What remains of the old barn near the Camp Polk Cemetery is leaning south. In May, the lean was 9 degrees. By this month it has increased to 12 degrees.

Preservationists fear this could be the winter it goes down, as the lookout tower on Black Butte fell last winter during an ice storm.

The barn is believed to be the oldest structure still standing in Deschutes County. Samuel Hindman built the barn around 1870 as part of the first homestead in today's Deschutes County.

The barn also served travelers coming to Central Oregon on the first wagon road to cross the mid-Cascades. The Hindmans operated a road station at the site, with temporary lodging for travelers and their wagons and stock.

The barn stayed in the Hindman family until 1940, and was actively used into the 1960s. Maintenance did not keep up with the barn's gradual deterioration. People began taking barn boards for picture frames and mementos. In 1990, a windstorm badly damaged the roof. Today only the core structure remains.

In 2000, the Deschutes Basin Land Trust acquired the Hindman barn and the site of Camp Polk. This was part of a larger acquisition: the meadow along Squaw Creek. The Land Trust acquired the meadow in order to restore and protect riparian habitat along Squaw Creek in preparation for restoring anadromous fish runs across Lake Billy Chinook and up Squaw Creek.

The barn hardly looks like a barn today. It is missing its roof, and the standing timbers outline only the center section of the original structure. Sixteen posts, roughly 10 inches square by 14 feet tall, stand on equally massive sills and support top plates 64 feet long made from single logs.

Up close, one can see that all of these timbers were hewn by hand with a broad ax. It is post-and-beam construction, each mortise, tenon and wooden peg fashioned with a few simple tools and a lot of time.

The remains of the historic Hindman barn stand close to the site of an Army camp where 40 men from Polk and Benton counties were stationed from September 1865 into May, 1866. It is possible that some of the barn timbers were originally felled by these soldiers for their camp buildings.

Time and the weather have taken their toll on the old barn. The sills and top plates, especially, have deteriorated badly, cross bracing is missing and the foundation (flat rocks at key points under the sills) is insecure.

Opinions are mixed about what can be saved, and for what end. Some experts who have examined what is left of the barn believe that it is in an advanced state of decay and too late to save. Others say it has already lasted a long time and still could be preserved.

Options include shoring up the timbers where they stand, or removing and storing them, to provide time for a plan and a strategy to be developed for them at this site or at another location. Another option would be to sell the timbers for use in private construction.

"We'd really like to preserve the historic site in an appropriate way, given its tremendous significance," said Brad Chalfant, Executive Director of the Land Trust.

"However, the core mission of the Land Trust is to conserve open space and fish and wildlife habitat. Camp Polk Meadow was acquired with money specifically intended to protect and restore native habitats for a variety of wildlife species, particularly the eventual reintroduction of Steelhead trout.

"Obviously, we need to make sure that any solution for conserving the historic site doesn't compromise wildlife values," Chalfant said.

The Board of the Land Trust decided last June to try to raise the $3,000 needed to pull the barn structure back to an upright position and stabilize it in place temporarily.

The hope is to buy a few years' time to see if there are persons or organizations locally that want to assure a future for the barn or its timbers.

For more information, contact the Deschutes Basin Land Trust at 330-0017.