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Oregon Historic Sites Database

address:507 S 3rd St historic name:Moser, Joseph Henry, Barn
Silverton, Marion County current/other names:Moser Barn
assoc addresses:
block/lot/tax lot:
location descr: twnshp/rng/sect/qtr sect:
resource type:Building height (stories):3.0 total elig resources:1 total inelig resources:0
elig evaluation: eligible/significant NR Status: Individually Listed
prim constr date:1910 second date: date indiv listed:06/14/2013
primary orig use: Business orig use comments:
second orig use: Animal Facility
primary style: Other / Undefined prim style comments:
secondary style: sec style comments:
primary siding: Horizontal Board siding comments:
secondary siding:
plan type: architect:
builder:Joseph Henry Moser and Henry Granzer
comments/notes:
Not associated with any surveys or groupings.
NR date listed: 06/14/2013
ILS survey date:
RLS survey date:
106 Project(s): None
Special Assess Project(s): None
Federal Tax Project(s): None
(Includes expanded description of the building/property, setting, significant landscape features, outbuildings and alterations)
The Joseph Henry Moser Barn, constructed in 1910, is located on the northeast side of 507 S. 3rd Street, at the east (rear) end of an irregularly-shaped lot in Silverton, Marion County, Oregon. The barn is set against the foot of the long hill that forms the eastern edge of the Silver Creek floodplain, within which central Silverton is built. The lot fronts 84.15 feet along S. 3rd Street, extending northeast to an unmaintained alley (a public right-of-way) that forms the rear boundary of the property. The barn is a front-gabled balloon-framed, three-level bank-barn with two additions, one (the north façade shed-roof addition) added in 1912 and the other (the south façade shed-roof addition) added in 1927. The barn has a corrugated metal roof supported by light framing, and is clad in horizontal board siding, which the family refers to as Dutch-lap or German cove-lap (drop) siding, and sits on a mortared-stone retaining wall on the east side and on stacked stone on the remaining sides. Bank-barns are characterized by their multilevel design, where the upper level is entered from a bank or hillside and the lower level is used for livestock. The Moser Barn has three levels and measures approximately 54’ × 32’. The first level has a calf pen, a shop, and a 32’-2” × 24’- 4” inch area that historically was used for the horses, but has since been converted to storage. The second level, which is effectively the main level, has a 32’ × 24’ open barn area (this space was originally used for wagons and buggies and later as vehicular storage space), another smaller storage space (13’-4” × 32’-2”) in the 1912 addition (this space was used to store house-raising equipment), and the 1927 shed-roof addition, which the family referred to as the mixer shed as it housed the cement mixer for the house moving business. Each of these three sections on the second level is only accessible from exterior openings on the east façade (see second floor plan). The third level has an open 24”-4” × 32’-2” hayloft with an irregular pentagon-shaped hayloft door in the gable peak on the east façade. The Joseph Henry Moser Barn is approximately 2,200 square feet. It is the last known barn remaining within the boundaries of Silverton, a vestige of the pre-motor age, and a remnant example of a building type that was once commonplace in Silverton.
(Chronological, descriptive history of the property from its construction through at least the historic period - preferably to the present)
The Joseph Henry Moser Barn, located in Silverton, Oregon, is significant locally under National Register Criterion A for its association with transportation, as it is an excellent example of a barn used as a support building for a livery business in the early-twentieth century. The barn is also eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C for architecture, as an excellent example of an urban bank-barn constructed in the early-twentieth century. The barn has a German vernacular form, which could be associated with the Moser family’s German heritage, and is rare barn type in the Willamette Valley. The building’s construction was also well suited for its use. The barn’s balloon-frame construction was an economical solution, requiring less labor to construct, and the “light framing,” roof system allowed for “overhead storage of hay and feed without interference from supporting members.” The design allowed for a large, 24’- 4” × 32’ 2” open hay storage space on the third level and ample animal and equipment storage on the lower two levels without using the heavy sawn-timber frame common in agricultural barns in the region. The Moser Barn’s period of significance for Criterion A begins in 1910, the year of the barn’s construction, and extends until 1914, when horse transportation began to decline because of the rise in automobile use. The period of significance for Criterion C begins in 1910, the year of the barn’s construction, and ends in 1912, the year the north shed-roof addition was completed. This addition added considerable space to the lower level on the north façade and offered a 13’-4” × 32’ 2” storage space, with a hinged door to the front (east) façade of the barn. The barn is significant locally to the City of Silverton as it is the only known barn standing within Silverton’s city limits. It retains its integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association and is a rare intact example of a bank-barn and supplementary building for a livery business in Marion County. association with transportation as a livery support building, a resource key to the movement of people and goods in the early-twentieth century. By 1910, when the barn was initially constructed, the livery business was already threatened by the increase in automobile use, and by 1914 the use of the horse for transportation began to decline dramatically. No other urban barns of this type remain in Silverton, making it a unique example. The Joseph Henry Moser Barn is also eligible for the National Register of Historic Places under Criterion C for architecture as an excellent example of an urban, balloon-framed bank-barn constructed in the early- twentieth century. The Moser Barn, with its thoughtful design, displays a high degree of architectural integrity, which clearly communicates its association as an early-twentieth-century bank-barn. The three-story barn has exterior access on multiple levels for humans and livestock, an open hayloft, and a variety of storage spaces for the families’ livery business. The Moser Barn has retained all of the aspects of integrity, especially those critical for Criterion C, including retention of materials, workmanship, and design. The bank-barn style is clearly demonstrated in the barn’s multilevel design. With few exceptions, the barn looks now as it did when it was constructed in 1910–1912. This barn is the last remaining urban barn within Silverton’s city limits, making it uniquely able to convey its history.
Title Records Census Records Property Tax Records Local Histories
Sanborn Maps Biographical Sources SHPO Files Interviews
Obituaries Newspapers State Archives Historic Photographs
City Directories Building Permits State Library
Local Library: University Library:
Historical Society: Other Respository:Silverton Museum
Bibliography:
Breeder’s Gazette. “Farm Buildings.” The Breeder’s Gazette, 1913 and 1919, Chicago. Carter, Thomas, and Roger Roper, Of Work and Romance: Discovering Utah Barns. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Graduate School of Architecture, 1999. Contractor, The. “Machine and Trade Notes” 17(6), March 15, 1913. Davenport, Timothy D. 1910. Letter to Mary Delle, July 3, 1910. Collection of the Silverton County Historical Society 2010. Evans, Gail E.H. Silverton, Oregon Historic Context Statement. City of Silverton, Oregon, 1996. Fuller, George Washington. A History of the Pacific Northwest. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1931. Gallagher, Mary Kathryn. Historic Context Statement: the Barns of Linn County, Oregon, 1845-1945. [Oregon]: Linn County Planning Department, 1997. Jones, Edward Gardner. The Oregonian’s Handbook of the Pacific Northwest. Portland: The Oregonian Publishing Company, 1894. McEachern, Philip Duncan. 1990. “Silverton: the Morphology of an Oregon town.” M.A. thesis, University of Oregon, 1990. McKenney, L.M. and Co. Pacific Coast Directory. San Francisco, California: L.M. McKenney & Co., 1881. Murphy, John Mortimer. Oregon Business Directory and State Gazetteer. Portland, Oregon: S.J. McCormick, Oregonian Publishing Company, 1873. Pool, George. History of Joseph Henry Moser’s Barn. Personal communication with Jason Allen (2012). Pool, George. Personal conversation with Adrienne Donovan Boyd, November 7, 2012. Radford, William A. Radford’s Combined House and Barn Plan Book Being a Complete Collection of practical, Economical and Common Sense Plans of Houses, Barns, Outbuildings, Stock Sheds, Etc. Chicago, Illinois: The Radford Architectural Company, 1908. R.L. Polk. Polk’s Salem City and Marion County Directory. 1889-1890, 1893, 1907, 1909-1910, 1911, 1913, 1928-1929, and 1930-1931. Portland, Oregon: R.L. Polk. Schwantes, Carlos A. The Pacific Northwest: an Interpretive History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Spence, Clark C. “The Livery Stable in the American West.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 36 no. 2 (1986): 36–49. Universal Portland Cement Company. Concrete for the Farmer. Chicago, 1914. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Census population schedules. Ninth census, 1870. [Washington, D.C.]: National Archives Accessed June 2012. _____. Census population schedules. Tenth census, 1880. [Washington, D.C.]: National Archives Accessed June 2012. _____. Census population schedules. Eleventh census, 1890. [Washington, D.C.]: National Archives Accessed June 2012. _____. Census population schedules. Twelfth census, 1900. [Washington, D.C.]: National Archives Accessed June 2012. _____ Census population schedules. Thirteenth census, 1910. [Washington, D.C.]: National Archives Accessed June 2012. _____. Census population schedules. Fourteenth census, 1920. [Washington, D.C.]: National Archives Accessed June 2012. _____. Census population schedules. Fifteenth census, 1930. [Washington, D.C.]: National Archives Accessed June 2012