Chehalis property owner works to restore a 95-year-old heritage barn

The three-story, hoop roof barn at 423 Newaukum Valley Road in Chehalis was one of the first things about the property that caught Mary Verner’s eye when she purchased it six and a half years ago.

A former mayor of Spokane, Verner moved to Chehalis after she was hired as the administrative services director and chief financial officer for the City of Olympia in 2017.

“I fell in love with the barn,” Verner said Thursday. “There are other fascinating buildings here on the property too, (but) that’s the oldest one.”

Built by a member of the Hamilton family in 1929 at a cost of $2,500, the barn was owned and used by three or four generations of the Gleason family, who farmed on the property. It is now called “Maggie’s Farm.”

The Hamiltons and Gleasons were early settlers of Lewis County, with the Gleasons moving to the Newaukum Valley Road farm in 1908, according to Verner’s research.

“This is family history here: In addition to being a cool building … it’s Lewis County’s history,” Verner said.

Since purchasing the property, Verner has made it her mission to collect as much information as she can about the historic barn and keep it standing for future generations.

“When we first moved here, my daughter was hoping to turn it into a venue … But as I face the reality of all the structural damage, my goal became preservation. I just want to preserve it,” Vener said. “If I can also restore it, that would be great, but it’s costing a lot just to preserve it and keep it standing.”

The barn is one of at least nine designated heritage barns in Lewis County, defined by the state Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation as a large agricultural outbuilding over 50 years old that has maintained “historical significance and integrity.”

The state Heritage Barn Register was established in 2007 “to specifically recognize agricultural resources in the state,” the Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation states on its website.

While working on preserving the barn, Verner has also reconnected with living members of the Hamilton and Gleason families and invited them to visit the property.

She spoke with one of the Hamiltons, who is now in his 90s, about his experience living on the farm when the barn went up. She also invited several younger Gleasons to visit the property.

“They actually took some of the (farm) records, because they’re handwritten by their great-grandfather,” Verner said. “It was a treasure of little things that mean something to the Gleasons.”

Other items cleaned out from the barn have been donated to the Lewis County Historical Museum or sold to pay for repairs to the roof. Some, including a decades-old egg washing machine and a wooden cart specifically built for road repairs, are still in the barn.

With a small state heritage barn grant and a generous amount of donated materials and volunteer labor, Verner has made some emergency structural repairs to the barn and redone half of the roof. But her work on the barn is far from finished.

“I just keep a constant list … Once in a while I get to take something off,” Verner said.

The most pressing projects are to replace the other half of the barn’s roof and add more bracing to the roof to prevent it from collapsing.

“It’s a commitment. I didn’t expect that, but the more I learn about it, the more I’m committed to it.”

Verner encourages anyone interested in donating money, materials or volunteer time to her preservation effort to email her at vernermaryb@gmail.com .