Driving along the Butler County Barn Trail is not a typical activity for this suburban Pittsburgh mom.  When I get in the car, invariably it is to chauffeur my kids between activities and friends’ houses.  Rarely do I get a chance to drive for the pure pleasure of taking in the scenery.
The self-guided Butler County Barn Trail was the perfect escape.

Meandering through the countryside with a friend, we marveled that the busy city was only a few miles south of our destination. How was this possible, we wondered, when we were seemingly transported into the heart of rural Pennsylvania?

We followed a visitors map, available for download on visitbutlercounty.com, which reflects three separate driving tours-different groupings of barns can be accessed via Route 19, Route 8, or Route 68.

Though Butler County boasts 1,100 farms with approximately 116 acres of farmland each, more than a dozen barns were appointed to be part of the trail.

The barns on the trail are architecturally diverse, though the majority are “Pennsylvania Bank Barns,” a style of barn built into a slope or a hill, making it accessible from ground or upper levels.  Usually, the animals were housed on the lower floor, while grain and feed were kept upstairs.

Virtually all of the barns are surrounded by majestic scenery that will have you reaching for your camera to capture as much beauty that will fit onto a screen.

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One standout for me was the muted red Wimer Barn in Portersville, dating back to 1893, and in the same family for five generations.
Although we did not locate it, the date on the barn is said to still be visible. The picture perfect landscape surrounding the property was an artist’s canvas. The scene was so tranquil that I’m convinced if I had seen a hammock on the property, I would have fallen right into it, with apologies to the owner.

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Drovers Inn Farm in Harmony, built in 1835, was a former dairy farm. The stone barn with the four silos is regal and venerable.  Historically, the adjacent house functioned as an inn, built by the Harmonist Society.

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The stark white of the Miller Farm‘s cattle barn in the quaint college town of Slippery Rock sits below the Miller Esker, which provides a stunning backdrop.  An esker is a glacial landform that winds, snakelike, forming a ridge of stratified gravel and sand.  The half-mile, 360-foot wide Miller Esker, considered to be the largest in Pennsylvania, is now owned and preserved by the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy.

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The oldest barn on the trail, the Harmonist Ziegler-Wise Barn, was constructed in 1805 and is the oldest surviving barn of the three that were built by the Harmony Society of German Lutheran Separatists.  In fact, the Harmony Society bought the barn in 1999 for preservation purposes. The red barn, with its brick silo that was added around 1950, is imposing.  If you listen closely (and with a little imagination), perhaps you can still hear the sounds of bygone sheep bleating in the distance.

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You can really feel the history that envelops some of the older barns; several of the barns have been in the same family for multiple generations, including the Love Barn at Fieldstone in Saxonburg, which is now owned by the 8th generation of descendants.  That barn, constructed following the owner’s stint as a soldier in the Civil War, is a popular wedding venue.

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Note that not all of the barns are open to the public; it is advisable to maintain a respectful distance if you get out of your car to take photographs.  However, you can arrange for a tour of the Marburger Dairy Barn in Evans City to meet the cows on site as well as to admire the barn, built in 1980, and its five silos.

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Tours are also available of the 1883 Maharg Farm at Succop Conservancy in Butler (pictured,title page), owned by the Audubon Society of Western Pennsylvania.  An out-of-the-ordinary feature is a restored hay wagon. The barn is a blend of old and new; when it was rebuilt in 2008, some of the older elements were mixed in with new ones, and the three cupolas were restored as well.

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Speaking of cupolas, the three functional cupolas on the roofline at Fairfield Farm (above) in Butler add a decorative element to this stunning barn and make for a postcard-perfect scene.  A cistern built into the bank collects rainwater, eventually flowing into a trough for the cows to drink.

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And though you will still see cows grazing on the farms of Butler County, every so often you may run into alpacas, such as at the Cotacachi Barn in Butler, which was originally a dairy farm; the milk house is visible from the road.  Besides the wooly alpacas who call this place home, a unique element of this barn is that the support beams and rafters are made of trees with bark.

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Driving along the barn trail conjured up a nostalgic longing for simpler times, evoking in me a desire to pull over, sit in a rocking chair on a porch and relax with a glass of homemade lemonade.  It is both a history lesson and a unique activity that can be enjoyed any time of year. It is well worth the trip, from any part of the state, to step back in time along the Butler County Barn Trail.

Photos courtesy of the Butler County Tourism & Convention Bureau