Winds Topple 1885 Barn
By Margaret Foster | From Preservation | May 29, 2007
The barn's owner may allow a group to salvage some of the
19th-century wood from the collapsed Teeple Barn.
Credit: Ag Tech
Despite recent repairs, a 16-sided barn built in 1885 collapsed in heavy winds last week.
Located in Elgin, Ill., the so-called Teeple Barn was listed on the National Register. Local architect W. Wright Abell designed it for lumberman Lester Teeple, whose planks were too short for a typical barn.
"It makes you sad to see it lying there in a pile," says Vera Teeple, who lived on the farm since 1941 and now lives nearby. "It withstood a tornado in '33. It was standing very erect up until Friday."
The Teeples sold the farm to a developer in 1989; it is now the property of Fisher Nuts, a brand of J.B. San Filippo & Sons, Elk Grove Village, Ill.
Representatives from Ag Tech, a grassroots group that formed about 10 years ago to stabilize the barn, and the barn's owner, Fisher Nuts, will meet tomorrow to discuss what to do with the valuable wood.
"We're thinking we'll salvage the wood that's there," says Ken Teeple, whose great-grandfather built the barn. "We're trying to make the best out of a bad situation."
Ag Tech had rebuilt the barn's eight-sided cupola in 1998 and replaced some of the rotten wood. The group received a federal Save America's Treasures grant of $149,000 in 2003 and smaller grants from the city and the Landmarks Council of Illinois.
"It needed more repair and hadn't got it," says Ken Teeple, who is also a board member of Ag Tech. "We tried. We did a lot, but it needed more."
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