This 1893 Mills County barn, one mile west of Treynor on Hwy. 92 and owned by Craig and Donna Sudmann, is 133 years old. It has been recently re-painted, and is still in use for storage of small bales of hay and grain for their pleasure horses. A rather complicated system in this barn in past years used buckets to fill and empty bins filled with grain that was stored inside. See page 44 of Iowa Barns yesterday and today for more information on this system.
Craig Sudmann’s great-great-grandfather named the farm “Trio Dell” because there are three valleys (dells) in the area. The date 1893 is painted on the west side of the cupola and Trio Dell Farm on the east side.
Another barn, built in 1925, several hundred feet to the southeast of the 1893 barn, has been recently restored (See photo below). It provides shelter for the horses in inclement weather and storage for their food in the form of 1,500 pound round bales. A large center door was made to allow for the storage of the large bales.
