The northeast corner of the Indiana State Fairgrounds is the site of the Pioneer Village, a group of buildings from old farms that have been restored and erected on the grounds. Each year, farmers and artisans from all over the country come to the fair to display their skills and to show what farm life was like before modern conveniences, machinery and corporate farming became the norm. This site is also where the antique tractors are displayed, where wood logs are made into lumber with a steam operated mill; the audience for this work is typically shoulder to shoulder, as people watch a group of older men systematically produce a pile of evenly sized boards.
One of the buildings is the corncrib shown in these pictures. The crib was used by farmers to store harvested corn for future use as winter feed for livestock and chickens. The dried corn would also have been the source for seed corn for planting the following year. As its golden color may indicate, it was also a farmer's stockpile; held against a time when money was short and the price of corn high, he could sell the stockpile for needed cash.
During the winter, it might be the chore for one of the children to grind the corn to feed the animals, keeping the cobs to use as livestock bedding and as fuel in their home.
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| Close-up view of a wire fence maker |
More to come later from Pioneer Village.
