Posted: 10/4/2012 1:55:39 PM EDT
Any farmers or ranchers share their barn knowledge? 
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I was always told it was because red paint of the time didn't contain lead and farmers didn't want their animals to ingest the lead paint. Apparently, whoever told me that was wrong. |
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The first guy that painted a barn was well known for being a tight wad. The paint store was out of white the day he bought paint, so he bought red paint.
All the neighbors were copy cats, because they knew he bought the cheapest paint possible, so they did, too. This caused the price of red paint to collapse, so then it really was the least costly option. The rest of the neighbors were even tighter and they bought whitewash from a guy down by the river. Now you know the rest of the story. |
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Learn something new every day. |
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Quoted:
I was always told it was because red paint of the time didn't contain lead and farmers didn't want their animals to ingest the lead paint. Apparently, whoever told me that was wrong. 
LOL. Folks back then took lead salts as medicine. |
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No shit. Learn something new every day. |
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Old red barns must be a regional thing. Spent lots of my youth in southern Missouri and can't remember ever seeing an old painted barn, let alone a red one. Must have stayed in town. You can't swing a cat without hitting a red barn in the Missouri Ozarks. There are plenty that were never painted, too. Where I live now the old German farmers were not only too tight to paint a barn, they wouldn't buy hardware unless there was no other option. Every old barn around has a hole in the door to use as a handle. Most of them are built on rock piers, which is also popular method in the Ozarks. |
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Cause blue was already taken for the boathouse at Hereford  I'm gonna miss the joke on purpose. 
There were no (or VERY few) blue barns because blue dye was ridiculously expensive. It was 1897 or so before there was a good process for making artificial indigo dye. Before that, it was natural (EXPENSIVE) dye or nothing. That process was invented by BASF in Germany. Around that time, Germany led the world in synthetic dye production, and it was the strength of that chemical dye industry that led them to be the world leader in manufacture of many chemicals. The US was a distant second at that time. Not so long after that in 1909, Fritz Haber invented a process which made ammonia from nitrogen in the air, and allowed Germany to produce explosives (and fertilizer) without importing bat shit, which had been the standard method up to that time. It was that ability that allowed Germany to wage a war like the first world war. The Allied blockade couldn't stop them from making shells. It was also that same chemical industry that allowed Germany what it thought was a tactical advantage in chemical weapons. They kept the lead throughout the war in that respect, each new gas being introduced by them first and then copied by the allies. And later still, in 1925, all of the German chemical companies were united in what was called an interessengemeinschaft, or a community of interests. This particular interessengemeinschaft was named IG Farben, and was singularly important in their waging of the second world war, producing synthetic rubber and gas among other war needs. Company officers were prosecuted at Nuremburg for war crimes, and the IG was broken up after the war. During the war though, IG Farben, well educated by the first war and fearing US seizure of it's assets here, formed a front company to try to shield those assets. It didn't work, but the company they formed kept right on after the war (under new leadership). That company is GAF, General Aniline and Film. All that shit from blue fucking dye. 
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I was always told it was because red paint of the time didn't contain lead and farmers didn't want their animals to ingest the lead paint. Apparently, whoever told me that was wrong.
LOL. Folks back then took lead salts as medicine. And you don't even want to know what they did with mercury salts to cure syphilis. |
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I think it was because red paint was cheap to make. I think that is the story I heard too. Cheapest paint on the shelves. I have seen some barns with red paint on the sides and white paint on the roof to keep it cooler inside. For timber marking, red paint is the MOST expensive. AND it's still got LEAD in it. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Old red barns must be a regional thing. Spent lots of my youth in southern Missouri and can't remember ever seeing an old painted barn, let alone a red one. Must have stayed in town. You can't swing a cat without hitting a red barn in the Missouri Ozarks. There are plenty that were never painted, too. Where I live now the old German farmers were not only too tight to paint a barn, they wouldn't buy hardware unless there was no other option. Every old barn around has a hole in the door to use as a handle. Most of them are built on rock piers, which is also popular method in the Ozarks. I see red barns, they just don't look like they were painted red anytime close to when they were built. I see way more natural wood barns though. Frame of reference wise, my family land is in the Poplar Bluff area. |
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Old red barns must be a regional thing. Spent lots of my youth in southern Missouri and can't remember ever seeing an old painted barn, let alone a red one. Must have stayed in town. You can't swing a cat without hitting a red barn in the Missouri Ozarks. There are plenty that were never painted, too. Where I live now the old German farmers were not only too tight to paint a barn, they wouldn't buy hardware unless there was no other option. Every old barn around has a hole in the door to use as a handle. Most of them are built on rock piers, which is also popular method in the Ozarks. I see red barns, they just don't look like they were painted red anytime close to when they were built. I see way more natural wood barns though. Frame of reference wise, my family land is in the Poplar Bluff area. I don't recall seeing a barn around Poplar Bluff, so you might be right. I grew up in Wright County, a little farther west on US 60. |