The Heart of Cache Valley

To Leo Krebs, 89 year old North Logan native and former USU dairy herdsman, Utah State University is the heart of Cache Valley. He has a lot of memories of watching the campus change over the years as most of the barns and animals were removed and newer buildings, like the nearby Nelson Fieldhouse and the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, were constructed.

Many of Mr. Krebs' memories are of the horse barn. He used one of the university's Persian work horses, a dapple gray mare named Lucy, to haul hay to the other animals. He remembers that USU grew its own hay, but it also bought hay from local farmers. The hay would be loaded into the loft of the horse barn with a Jackson fork. To feed the hay to the horses, they would shove it down through holes in the ceiling.

Many young people getting an education at USU had learning experiences at the horse barn. Mr. Krebs remembers one young man in particular. "I asked him to unharness her [Lucy] one night and he unharnessed her. The next morning when I went to put the harness on her, he had undone all the buckles. I had to put the harness back together." Mr Krebs laughed at the memory, saying, "He was a very good boy but he was just learning how to put a harness on a horse."

In addition to the two teams of work horses, USU also kept stud stallions that were "outstanding horses" meant to improve the quality of horses in Cache Valley. Mr. Krebs explained, "They [the university] were the only ones that could afford a good horse or a good stallion like that and so they would have them there for breeding services for a very cheap price." This allowed Cache Valley farmers to improve the quality of their own stock.

Mr. Krebs has witnessed a lot of changes at USU, and he looks forward to seeing the historic horse barn rehabilitated as the new USU Museum of Anthropology and Welcome Center. He says, "Tell them to hurry up so I can see it."

Ghosts of the Art Barn

All college campuses have ghost stories, and Utah State University is no exception. There may even be a ghost or two haunting the Art Barn. John Seiter, a USU speech communication professor who once taught in the Art Barn, remembers that a number of his students said there was a ghost in the barn. In fact, some of his students decided that the Art Barn was haunted by a ghost pig. He explains how this story came to be:

"Antonio [a large ceramic pig from San Antonio that Dr. Seiter keeps in his office] ended up being in the barn, and it's the best conversation piece for a professor, especially a professor whose office is in the barn . . . My students joked that there was a ghost in the barn, and of course a lot of things started being attributed to this. It started as a ghost, and it ended up as a pig ghost . . . For a while they were blaming it on my pig, and then it went from my pig to it's an actual ghost pig. And they had a name for it; it wasn't Antonio. I can't remember what the name was, but, you know that banging [the building had steam heat] that happens at odd times when you're in class? Sometimes you're teaching and the banging would start and the students would go 'It's the ghost pig.'"

Dr. Seiter said that some of his students also thought that on rainy days the Art Barn still smelled like hay from its horse barn days.

What do you think? Is the Art Barn haunted? If you know any spooky (or funny) legends or stories about the barn, post a comment and let us know!

New Aggie Barn Banners!

In honor of Homecoming 2010, "Team Barn" has affixed banners to the north and south gambrel areas of the Aggie Barn, showing how it will look after renovation. Here's a sneak preview, and drive by when you get a chance to check the banners out in person. They look really nice!

Bryant Gomm

Bryant Gomm had an unusual job while he attended USU in the late 1940s. He was hired, along with two other students, by the Vet Science department to live in the Vet Science building and help take care of the animals in the barns. Mr. Gomm's primary job was to care for the rabbits, chickens, and turkeys and to help keep the building clean. On weekends when one of the other students, Daniel Dennis, was not around, Mr. Gomm also looked after the horses. This involved feeding the horses and taking them to the cow barn to water them.

One particular experience with the horse barn stands out in Mr. Gomm's memory. He said that one time as he headed to the horse barn, he decided to let out a loud coyote yelp. He hadn't expected the reaction that he got. "Those horses stomped and jerked around. I thought they were going to tear the place apart before I could get them calmed back down." These were draft horses, either Percherons or Morgans, and Mr. Gomm remembers that they were very gentle, "except when I coyote'd them."

For his hard work, Mr. Gomm was paid 40 cents an hour. This, along with the milk, eggs, and meat from the chickens and rabbits that the Vet Science department let him keep, helped Mr. Gomm work his way through college. He went on to get a PhD in plant physiology and worked for the USDA, as well as occasionally teaching classes at Utah State University.

Ron Keller

In an interview, Ron Keller shared his experience working at the barn in 1950. He was twelve years old and had grown up riding horses, milking cows, and picking apples on his family's farm. His neighbor, Mr. Batt, worked for the college and hired him to ride the work horses that were used to haul hay to the barn.

Mr. Keller would strap a large harness around the horse's belly and under its tail. The work horses were very big, so it was a bit tricky for a twelve year old boy to sit on the horse and wrap his legs around it, but he managed to do it. He would ride the horses as they used a Jackson fork to haul bales of hay from the delivery truck into the barn. They could only unload 4 or 5 bales at a time, so it was a long, hot process to unload the trucks, which carried about 150 bales.

The job had its rewards, though. Mr. Keller said, "That was the first job I can remember that I ever got paid for and I made two dollars per day. That was a lot of money, I thought. I remember going down with my first check and buying a pair of pants and a shirt that I'd admired for so long, and several things just out of one day's pay, you know. So it was fun."

When the other barns were dismantled a few years later to make room for the Taggart Student Center, Mr. Keller's father used some of the the materials from the barns to build a garage, which is still standing behind Mr. Keller's house. Mr. Keller later did some other work on campus as a mechanic and welder, and all nine of his children were also involved with Utah State University.

Jon Anderson & Don Young

Jon Anderson, retired USU Art Professor, has donated a painting from 1966 to the USU Museum of Anthropology. The piece depicts a scene in the Art Barn by one of Anderson’s illustration students, Don Young. Young painted this piece in a life drawing class as one of Anderson’s assignments. The assignment scenario asked students to create a scene depicting two USU police officers bursting into their classroom chasing after a burglar.

Completed in just two weeks time, the painting depicts the 1960s interior of the 3rd floor of the Art Barn with its exposed rafter beams, black wooden seats and student art work displayed on its walls. The painting’s vibrant colors and detail give viewers a glimpse of an art form then commonly seen on the front cover of magazines, such as Cosmopolitan and Newsweek in the 1960s and 70s and now often gracing the front cover of romance novels.

The artist Don Young died an untimely death at the young age of 30 from diabetes. However, his talent, shown through this painting, will impact future generations as a unique piece of USU’s Barn history. Thanks to Mr. Young and Mr. Anderson for sharing this wonderful work and story.