Botkins area resident Dave Hemmert spent 40 years restoring, dismantling, and visiting timbered barns in southern Auglaize County and northern Shelby County. He took photos, obtained old photos, made illustration drawings, and gathered stories. Now he has published a 142 page fullcolor book, “Timbered Barns and Their People”.
The book is as much a people story as it is a barn story. The story begins with the barn on the Quaker farm on Hardin-Wapakoneta Road at the southern edge of the Shawnee Indian Reservation, goes to early barns in the Fryburg, Wapakoneta, and Botkins area, and ends with large barns in the Fryburg, Botkins, and New Knoxville area. Twenty-three barns with the most interesting stories were chosen for the book. The people part of a barn’s story played the biggest part in choosing which barns to include.
Barns selected include those of the Walter, Lunz, Campbell, Botkin, Boyer, Koenig, Nuss, Hemmert, Paul, Ambos, and Diegel families. It’s an easy-toread story with 187 photos and illustrations.
Copies of the book can be viewed and purchased for $20 at the front desk of the Auglaize Antique Mall, 116 West Auglaize Street, Wapakoneta.