Pioneer Farms
Scarborough Barn - 1850 and Eclipse Windmill - 1886
Built about 1850, atop a hill near where I-35 and U.S. 290 East intersect today, this barn was once a part of Scarborough family farm just north of Austin. It is likely the oldest extant barn of its type in the area, and one of the oldest in Texas.
It features large, hand-sawn timbers fitted together with mortise and tenon joints. The beams are notched to fit inside each other, and are fastened with wooden pegs. It is a common design for barns built before the Civil War.
This double-pen barn could stable six horses or mules and store seed or animal feed in two granaries. The loft, now extended for program needs, was only beginning to be used for hay storage when built, as the range moved from open grazing to fenced pastures. Extended sheds on each end made room for draft tack, harness and wagons.
Finely constructed barns such as this were a hallmark of successful farms in mid-1800s Texas. In many cases, a barn might be more finely built than a homesteader's house - for the barn sheltered the important tools and animals needed to earn a living.
Sources: Historic American Farm Buildings, Pioneer Farms Archive
The advent of windmills in the mid-1800s allowed Texas farmers to fence more land and improve livestock, since the water they produced made them less reliant on the weather. Windmills also changed the role of the cowboy, from cattle driver to fence rider.
This Model 10 Eclipse windmill was manufactured in 1886, and was one of the most common on the Southern Great Plains until World War I. The Eclipse was invented in 1867 by the Rev. Leonard H. Wheeler of Beloit, Wisc. The original model had four large paddle-shaped blades. By 1881, Eclipse windmills were being marketed through Fairbanks Morse & Co., which assumed control of the business nine years later.
This windmill's arms are made from oak, and its fins and blades are cypress. The parts are painted olive green, with the tips decorated in maroon or blood red. By the 1890s, wooden construction gradually gave way to metal windmills. This original Eclipse was donated to Pioneer Farms in 1996 by Nancy and Roy Christopher of Monahans, and was restored to its original configuration and colors by our volunteers in 2005.
Sources: Brad Anthenat, Windmill Museum of Texas, Pioneer Farms Archives.