Designers & Manufacturers of Buildings & Structures and Their Styling
Four important buildings in the farmstead were built from up-to-date modern, expert-designed, and/or specially designed plans, or were manufactured: the plans for the house were purchased from the Garlinghouse Company, the plans for the barn were purchased from the Louden Barn Company, and both were modified by Homer Ackley; the silo was manufactured by the Marietta Silo Company; and the granary was designed by Homer himself. In addition, the privy is a W.P.A. design.
The plans for the house were purchased from the Garlinghouse Company, and partly modified by Homer Ackley. Garlinghouse was founded in 1907. It is still providing house, addition, and domestic outbuilding plans, having several magazine affiliations and publishing a dozen periodicals of its own. (Although a long-lived and voluminous catalog house company, no other published information has been found on the company.)
The twentieth-century catalog house industry was a result of the evolution of American architecture over a century and a half, including the movement of common architecture from the vernacular to the popular through industrialization and mass-media publications.
The catalog house industry is significant in American history, architecture, engineering and culture. It made a significant contribution to the development of housing nationwide by making it easier for people of the working and middle classes to build and own their own homes, often with standardization, quality materials and craftsmanship, and a level of style that would have been unaffordable previously.
The catalog house industry, especially the pre-cut catalog house industry, peaked during World War I and the mid 1920s. For example, a leading company's 2,800 sales during 1918 comprised a surprising 2.37 of the housing starts for that year. The industry declined sharply during the Great Depression, recovered after World War II, but never again regained its position in the housing market. This may be attributable to union opposition (including indirect opposition through restrictive building codes), the rising cost of land and financing relative to material and labor, and the massive growth of speculative builders and speculative developments.
One of the revival styles introduced after the Civil War was the Tudor Revival style, based on the styling of English post-medieval manor houses. The Tudor Revival style went through many phases and variations (and is still popular to some extent). In the 1920s it began to be applied to small house types, inspired largely by Henry Ford's Cotswold cottage that he moved from England to Greenfield Village. In their in-depth study of catalog housing, Schweitzer and Davis have identified this style and labeled it the "Cottage Tudor" style. It was popular in the catalog house industry, and appealed to buyers who wanted a small but fashionable house.
It is usually applied to Cape Cod, Minimal Ranch, and "Colonial Bungalow" house types. Diagnostic features are side gables, with a center front gable encompassing the entry and sloping down asymmetrically where a relatively large chimney usually rises through it. Other common elements are clipped gables; stone, rustic brick, or shingle cladding; casement windows; arched doors and windows; and rustic fixtures. The overall feel is of a snug little cottage that approximately recalls medieval Europe.
The plans for the barn were purchased from the Louden Machinery Company, and partly modified by Homer Ackley.
The Louden Company dates back to 1867 when William Louden made a patent on a hay carrier, beginning a revolution in the agricultural products line. William Louden's specialized farm-equipment contributions to dairy farming have been compared to John Deere's and Cyrus McCormick's well-known contributions to grain farmers. The hay fork had already been developed to lift hay from wagons, but it operated from a fixed position and further rehandling of the hay was needed. Louden refined it by putting the hay fork on a track so the hay could be deposited anywhere along the axis of the barn. Before the hay fork, farmers built relatively smaller, traditional barns so that hay in the loft could be moved up or down by hand; the hay fork permitted taller and bigger barns and enabled farms to be larger and more efficient, and Louden's hay carrier further freed the farmer.
Louden also invented the litter carrier in 1895, the first automatic water bowl, and a flexible barn door hanger introduced in 1895, the forerunner of practically every barn door hanger still used today. Louden developed more and more labor saving devices, such as individual easy-to-clean metal cattle-watering drinking cups, which had the advantage of preventing the spread of disease between cows. Another novel design in the early 1920s was Louden's innovative truss-rib type gothic roof.
In 1907 Louden began a free barn planning service to help farmers build more efficient barns, which encouraged farmers to use Louden barn equipment, including their stock-in-trade ventilation systems, hay and litter carriers, windows, stalls, and pens. The Louden company was well-known for designing facilities for farmers, planning everything from major hog facilities to small farm barns. They would create blueprint plans, and even build the barn if needed. Louden claimed that by 1939 over 25,000 original Louden barn plans had been distributed all around the world. Tens of thousands of additional barns were equipped or retrofitted with Louden products.
During World War I manufacturers began to see that Louden's monorail overhead traveling crane system could speed up production and save money, and Louden's reputation for innovation, reliability and quality allowed them to expand this new market opportunity. Soon this division became predominant. By World War II many major manufacturers used Louden material handling equipment. This included Boeing, in their B-29 airplane plants. Louden was chosen to construct the material handing devices for the manufacture of atomic bombs in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In the 1960's Louden built 27 cranes and other devices to handle NASA's Apollo space booster rocket at Huntsville, Alabama, including two miles of track. In 1961 it supplied overhead cranes for a Boeing plant in Wichita, Kansas, which assembled B-52H airplanes.
Although the company has changed hands many times since 1953 (when the Louden family sold the company), the Louden name is still used on material handing equipment produced in Fairfield, Iowa and other locations, reflecting Louden's sterling reputation.
Ackley's GranaryHomer designed the Granary by himself, using a traditional timber frame structure with modern corn crib / grain elevator equipment. It was unique and impressive even for granary and corn crib manufacturers. Unfortunately, no plans or other data appear to have survived, and the McKees do not know what were his inspirations or sources for the design. The Granary is discussed below in the "Ackley Family and Farm" section.
The silo was built from prefabricated components manufactured by the Marietta Silo Company, which was established on the outskirts of Marietta, Ohio, by Frank Christy in 1916 for the purpose of manufacturing and selling wooden stave silos. In 1920, Christy successfully "pioneered the manufacture and erection of concrete farm silos," and in 1921 converted his entire production to concrete.
In 1927 the company was incorporated as the Marietta Concrete Company and added concrete block house construction to its manufacturing capabilities. Shortly after their addition of ready-mix concrete in 1934, the company began production of some pre-cast concrete. Marietta soon ranked as one of the largest silo manufacturers in the world, with thousands of silos in 17 states. With the opening of a branch plant in Baltimore, Maryland, the company was able to ship and build a silo within three days of receiving an order within 200 miles of its plants.
Diagnostic elements of Marietta silos are the concrete stave silage chute, and for silos built after about 1955, a windvane in the form of a trademark script "Marietta." The company also gave away promotional coin banks, now valuable collectors items.
In the late 1940s, Marietta Concrete produced one of the first applications of plant pre-cast concrete insulated wall panels in the United States. By the middle of the next decade, the company also installed prestressing facilities for the manufacture of double-tee decks and beams. In 1958 the Marietta Concrete Company merged with the Martin Aircraft Company, and the company's name changed to the Martin Marietta Corporation. But when Martin Marietta divested its pre-cast operations, a descendant of the founders of the original company purchased the Marietta location and reestablished Marietta Concrete Company.
In 1985 another Marietta-based company, Marietta Structures Corporation, acquired selected assets of the Marietta Concrete Company. By 1986 Marietta Structures had installed prestressed bridge beam casting beds in its pre-cast concrete plants. Marietta Structures acquired Jump-O-Form Systems in 1995, becoming the only silo contractor in the country able to produce "Jump-O-Form" systems for the construction of poured-in-place silos.
The surviving privy is a WPA design.
One of the many "alphabet soup" federal agencies formed by Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration offered employment and civil improvements. One product was the "Sanitary Privy," designed and often built by WPA "specialists" from 1933 to 1945.
These federally-designed, optimal privies had a pre-cast concrete base with seat riser, airtight seat lid, and a screened ventilator. They were offered for $5, or free, depending on income. "The national benefits derived from improved sanitation and regular weekly paychecks for 35,000 carpenter-trainees can never be adequately measured." Detailed plans drawn up by the Ohio Department of Health illustrate construction details.
Their distinctive form includes such diagnostics as wood frame construction, four-by-four-foot square footprint, door on one side of the front, square vent openings on both sides of the corner opposite the door, and shed roof with wide facia boards. Many of these still exist in Ohio, visible in farmsteads and towns throughout (including even the neighboring Henry Mace House farmstead (NRHP 1998)).
Homer and Jenola Ackley [Historical Photos 20, 22] shaped the farmstead around their farming and housekeeping. Homer Ackley was born in 1895. His future wife, Jenola Darby, was born in 1900. The two first met in 1913 at the United Brethren church near Londonderry, Ross County. After an extended courtship, they were married on December 11, 1916. They did not have a honeymoon, and for a month lived a mile apart, each with their own parents. In March of 1917 they moved to Frankfort, Ross County, where Homer worked as a tenant farmer.
They moved onto the farm under consideration later in 1917, probably August, when Mary Sauer received the property, and Homer began working as a tenant farmer for her. In the spring of 1918 the Ackleys had a daughter, Lavaughn Cleo Ackley, their only child, who was born in the house. Homer and Jenola eventually had two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, one of whom is David McKee, who, along with his wife Kathy, are the current owners of the property.
Apparently Homer had an arrangement with Mary Sauer whereby he profited from the farm and invested in equipment for it; he was buying new equipment before he owned the farm, and invested heavily in new buildings immediately after gaining possession. After Mary Sauer died in 1938, Homer began expanding the farm operation and improving the farm facility. It is unknown how he was able to afford such large, modern buildings within a short span of time in the waning years of the Great Depression; he may have received farm loans available at the time, or perhaps Mary Sauer had money hidden away that she left for him. Homer was shrewd and was determined to have the best he could afford, and within three years he had added a large modern barn, large granary/corn crib, and modern house [Historical Photos 18-19]. He named his farming operations "McCafferty Run Stock Farms" after the small stream that flows behind the terrace bluff. Their main crops were corn, wheat, hay, and clover, and their livestock were Hereford and Angus cattle and Hampshire hogs. Most of the corn produced on the farm was fed to the farm's cattle.
Homer was innovative among farmers in the county in using electricity, modern equipment, and engineered designs for his facility. (The only innovation he rejected was no-till farming, and that was late in his career.) For their labor-saving designs, his 1939 barn and 1940 granary (described in detail below) were touted in a 1941 photo, and trumpeted in a 1947 article, in the local newspaper. The house is probably the only Cottage-Tudor style farmhouse in the county, and was a unique farmhouse when built, with its modern construction and conveniences. An undated (but circa 1939) and unidentified newspaper photo indicates that it was newsworthy at the time.
For the Barn, Homer used professionally designed plans from the Louden Machinery Company, which in the early 1920s had innovated the truss-rib type gothic roof used on his barn [Historical Photos 6-8]. Homer modified the plans slightly, if not drawing up his own plans based on the blueprints. He also had a motorized hay fork in the barn, and soon added a wind-tunnel hay dryer with four-foot diameter electric blowers in the haymow that was a first in the county (but has since ben removed).
The barn as-built differs from the original plans mainly in having wood frame upper walls, instead of masonry walls; as a result, the rafters are continuous to the mow floor, which is atop masonry ground-floor walls. Homer may have made this modification to avoid outward pressure on the top of masonry side walls which would have had no buttresses; as modified, the mow joists are probably tied into the base of the roof arches/upper frame walls, and thus can resist outward pressure better.
This blueprint plan also delineates only a transverse cross-section elevation and methods and details of arch and roof construction, lacking parallel elevations and masonry information, and is in unused condition. Two plans custom-drawn for Homer delineate stalls and a basic ground-floor plan, but no other plans for the barn (other than milking stanchions, which were not needed for his feeder cattle) have been found by the McKees. With these facts in mind, it is possible that Homer Ackley used these plans as inspiration and a starting point, and drew the plans for his barn himself.
Homer designed the Granary by himself. Although its supporting structure is a timber frame design [Historical Photo 14], a traditional technology that was largely abandoned by the 1920s, inside it functioned much like a modern corn crib / grain elevator equipped with power machinery. It "caused quite a stir in the field of custom-built cribs," and was impressive enough that manufacturers studied the building and its plans.
It warranted a photo [Historical Photo 15] and caption in the local paper in November 1941:
Unusual in Ross County agriculture is the three-story combination granary and corn crib at the farm of Homer Ackley, on Route 104, north of Chillicothe. Although the building was erected last fall, this will be the first season for its extensive use. Its capacity is 3,000 bushels of wheat. Mr. Ackley (right) and his employee, Elmer Brown, are pictured above as they were unloading corn from a wagon into a bin from which an elevator delivers the ears to the top of the building, where it is distributed by sloping floors to various bins. In this manner, about 45 bushels of corn can be unloaded from the wagon and stored in about five minutes, Mr. Ackley says.
By 1947 Homer had a mechanical corn picker, whose harvest was dumped into steel wagons progressively equipped with rubber tires. The wagon loads were then dumped onto an auger or loading elevator that carried the crop into either of two cupolas atop the granary. Gravity then lowered the corn or grain over slopes, through chutes, into bins, and through hatches [Historical Photo 17]. Four-foot diameter electric blowers dried, raised, and filtered the corn and grain. An electric hammer mill ground corn in the lower level for cattle feed.
Although the granary could have been built from a reused barn, the timbers appear to have been freshly cut and unused at the time of construction. Perhaps the pre-war restrictions inspired Homer or forced him to use traditional materials and techniques to be able to build a strong and durable structure for his modern equipment.
Homer was one of the first in the county to buy a tractor, and was the first to buy a self-propelled combine. Surviving photos suggest the pride he had in his equipment [Historical Photo 16].
Homer Ackley was very active in his community. When the loft floor of the barn was finished, the Ackleys invited friends and neighbors to a "barn dance" on the new floor. After lacking a fair for a few years, Homer was one of five men who stood out in restarting the Ross County Agricultural Society in 1945, which immediately organized the Ross County Fair, and bought grounds a mile north of his farmstead that year. Homer was part of the committee that built the fairgrounds race track and grandstand the next year. He was also one of the founding members of the Ross Farmer's Club, in 1948; the basement of his house was designed to accommodate meetings and dinners. He was also a member of the Ross County Cattle Feeders.
Homer bought feeder cattle in trips to Colorado in the 1940s, and later, in trips to West Virginia. The cattle were then shipped to Chillicothe by rail, and Homer appears to have had a truck with a cattle cage by 1939 to bring them to and from the farm. The cattle were usually not free-range, being confined to the barn and adjacent feed lots [Historical Photo 21].
They warranted a photo and caption in the local paper in December 1941:
Part of the herd of feeder cattle at the 174-acre farm of Homer Ackley, on Route 104, north of Chillicothe, is pictured above. Forty-six head of Herefords, having been fattened at the Ackley farm for about a year, now average 1050 pounds, and will be sold to a packing house, probably in January. Thirty-five other Herefords were obtained by Mr. Ackley on a trip to Kansas City recently.
An example of his investment in livestock from a 1949 record book includes purchase of 66 head of feeder cattle; sale of 46 head of hogs and 1 sow; sale of 22 head of cattle to "co-op in Columbus;" livestock feed, salt and supplements; sale of 44 head of cattle to Columbus Packing Company; express charges and freight charges on "hog from Iowa;" sale of 89 head of hogs; and freight for cattle shipping.
Homer expanded his acreage by buying 150 acres of farmland near New Holland, Fayette County, in 1951. In 1957 he also bought a farm a mile and a half north, on Infirmary Lane, where he built a larger cattle facility (probably mentioned below; David and Kathy McKee's son currently operates a sheep farm there).
An article on the December 1962 annual tour of the Ross County Cattle Feeders lists Homer's as one of six farms to be visited. The farm described appears to be primarily the Infirmary Lane farm, but this illustrates the operations that Homer Ackley had at the time:
Participants will begin the tour at the Homer Ackley Farm, on Route 104, where they will view 100 head of Hereford steer calves; 100 head of Virginia-bred Angus steer that are nearly ready for market, and 100 yearling Colorado steers. Mr Ackley also has auger feeder bunks, 82 and 100 feet long supplied by silos 15 x 50 and 15 x 60 feet, plus a new pole barn and feedlot.
That same month, in the county to the north, Homer's cattle earned a photo and caption in a newspaper:
T-BONES ON THE HOOF -- Homer Ackley, owner and operator of the McCafferty Run Stock Farm, Ross County, consigned a load of 51 prime Angus cattle to the Bowling Stock Yard yesterday. Pictured in the ring with the top five steers are Ackley, left, and Frank Teegardin of the Columbus Union Stock Yards, the purchaser. ... The cattle, averaging over 1,100 pounds, have been in the feed lot for over a year, according to Ackley.
Surviving photos suggest the pride he had in his livestock [Historical Photo 21].
Harley Payne worked with Homer Ackley "and was like a brother to him." He married Hazel Brust in 1931 in Kentucky. He was the main worker on the farm for more than 41 years, living and working there from about 1939 until about 1981. Harley cared for the hogs and cattle, which was a full-time job. Harley and Hazel Payne lived in the "old brick," where the Ackleys probably first lived. It was a small brick house located in the bottomland far back on the farm, and was demolished many years ago.
The Paynes moved into the Ackley Tenant House after it was moved, and lived there until 1991. The house was provided as part of Harley's salary, and was never a rental house for the Ackleys, only a tenant house. The Ackleys also furnished the Paynes with a car, washer and dryer, television set, other appliances, and even a cemetery plot (as a Christmas present). Homer Ackley provided in his will that Harley could live in the house until he died or he did not want to live there; he eventually moved into a nursing home and died in the 1990s.
Other farm employees include Guy Allen (one of the builders of the barn in 1939), Butler Warner (noted in 1941, 1950, and with his initials in the Culvert), and Elmer Brown (noted in 1941).
Kathy and David McKee moved into the Ackley House in 1976, and Homer began passing on farm management to David. The hog operation located between the two houses ended by 1976, at the same time they switched from Hereford to entirely Black Angus cattle. All livestock operations on this farm ended in 1981 when David McKee took over, and more farmland was acquired; the farm became a crop farm, and the crops were switched to corn and soybeans.
Homer Ackley died 19 March 1995, and Jenola died 3 February, 1996. Jenola's obituary states that "Mrs. Ackley and her husband were well known Ross County farmers for more than 50 years." When Homer began working for Mary Sauer in 1917, he was given board and 50 cents a day. She left the 114-acre farm and another 120-acre farm to Homer Ackley in 1938. By 1947 he had expanded the farms to 400 acres. The total value of the farm property at the end of 1953 was $64,641. When Homer died in 1995, he left 2,094 acres to his heirs.
The current owners of the property, Kathy and David McKee, continue the tradition of farming and hospitality. Dave McKee farms several thousand acres on the property and elsewhere in the area, and Kathy McKee has run a banquet facility in the Canal House and a crafts shop in the McKee Barn, as well as helps to manage the agribusiness.
