Home BOP Cities Fishing Geography History Images Links Maps Nature POW Realty Sailing Tourism Weather Site Map Search

Lassen County landmark

Lassen County Times
18 May 1999
Page 5B

By Sam Williams Staff Writer
 

The old Tyler Barn, located on the Doyle Ranch near Milford, suffered severe damage during a windstorm in January which took a third of the roof and collasped its peak. Despite the extensive damage owners Ken and Irene Doyle thought it would be a shame to tear down the historic landmark built by hand with hand- hewn beams in the 1860s. The barn's post and beam framework is held together with hand-carved dowels. Photo - Ken Doyle

Thanks to caring property owners and an industrious contractor, a Lassen County landmark near Milford will survive into the next century.

The old Jerry Tyler barn on the Doyle Ranch was probably built during the 1860s and according to contractor Jeff Rogers; it's probably the second largest barn in Lassen County and probably the largest restored structure of its kind. Only the old Fruit Growers Barn located near the radio tower on the east end of Susanville appears slightly larger. Tyler is listed in Fairfield's History of Lassen County, and his old barn suffered severe damage during a windstorm last January and was nearly declared a total loss after several contractors said it couldn't be saved.

One third of the roof was blown away, collapsing the other side of the roof into the hole. But the barn's owners, Ken and Irene Doyle, decided it would be a shame to demolish it and struggled to find someone to help them rebuild it.

While the barn's exact history is lost in the mists of time, its oldest known owner was Jerry Tyler, a wilderness rancher with a homestead perched on a small hill above the banks of Honey Lake in the 1860s. Sometime in the misty past someone carved the name Tyler on a slat inside the barn.

Around the turn of the century, the property passed to George McCoy, who used the barn to store fruit. Before the Second World War, Harold "Heavy" Campbell bought the property. (Interestingly, Campbell was Doyle's uncle's brother in-law.)

The Doyle Brothers (Kenneth and Murray) purchased the land from Campbell in the 1950s as part of their ranching operation, and eventually the property was purchased by the Doyles.

Hand-hewn timbers

The old meets the new as the old Tyler barn undergoes reconstruction. The old rocks which supported the floor joists have been replaced with modern concrete footings, and the old barn's been raised several feet. Photo - Sam Williams

The massive 60 by 60 foot barn with a peak 50 feet in the air features massive hand-hewn timbers and post and beam construction.

Amazingly, the entire framework of timbers and beams is held together with hand-carved wooden dowels. Contractor Jeff Rogers, responsible for the barn's reconstruction, said modern workers couldn't duplicate the quality of work today.

"I talked to three or four contractors," said Ken Doyle, "and none of them would touch it. I was at the point where I was trying to figure out how to tear it down and salvage the beams. When you see the hand-hewn timbers and the way the barn is put together, you realize it would be a crime to tear it apart." Rogers and his partner, Jim Perez, had restored a couple of other old area barns in the area and decided to give the restoration a shot.

"The barn was so bad when we came out nobody knew how it was going to go," said Rogers. "The barn was missing the siding on the front end and the wind got inside and blew it up like a parachute, taking a section of the roof off and causing the peak to collapse, We had to almost totally rebuild the upper structure.

"Straightening it up was the biggest challenge and the most dangerous part of the work. We had to loosen everything up and when the wind blew we jumped back and hoped the whole thing wouldn't fall down on us. It was a pretty easy job after that." With the frame of the barn straight and secure, Rogers raised it and replaced the rock supports with concrete footings and a new foundation. Other work includes enclosing the barn, new siding and a new metal roof.
Tall, Tall Tales

Like everything else in the old west, we shouldn't be surprised that even old barns lend themselves to the legends and yarns which either may contain a kernel or truth or the light air of pure fantasy. Here's one such local tale.

Lovingly reconstructed by Ken and Irene Doyle, this historic old barn will probably survive another 140 years on a hill above the banks of Honey Lake. The old barn sports a new foundation, a new roof and a whole lot of new siding. Photo - Sam Williams

"There's a story of about 10 barn builders who traveled north from Reno through Long Valley," said Robert D. "Pete" Peterson, a laborer on the barn restoration project. "They traveled from farm to farm building barns from Fish Springs to Valley Falls. It probably took them a year to build a barn like this, and they would have needed the help of every local person they could get.

Peterson said he had no idea how the early settlers could build such a large structure. Did they build the two ends and then add the central structure or build the central part of the barn first and add the ends later? Know one will ever know.

The single timbers themselves are too large for men and animals to lift, so they must have used some kind of mechanical device to put them in place.

But Peterson can't even imagine what kind of device they might have used. Obviously it required tackle, pulleys, and a lot of effort from a number of horses and mules.

Since the barn builders may have been seamen, they had experience climbing masts and rigging sales, skills which certainly would have helped them raise the massive rafters and joists 50 feet in the air.