The dairy barn is an iconic sight in rural Wisconsin. Here's why most of them are red.

Yahoo

26-03-2025

When Scott Weber first started working for his dad in the painting business, there were plenty of barns needing attention in Walworth County.
"We'd drive down a country road and we'd have work all summer long painting barns," Weber said. "Today I can count on two hands how many dairy farmers are left in my county."
While the barns his company Weber Painting LLC paints vary in color, the majority are still painted red.
Dairy barns and Wisconsin's dairy industry naturally go hand-in-hand. The image of the red structures is so iconic that it's appeared on the state's license plates since 1986. Many wonder how the tradition of painting barns red got a foothold in our state. Three words: history, economics and practicality.
In his book Barns of Wisconsin, author Jerry Apps explores how the tradition of painting barns red dates back centuries, with roots in European farming practices.
"Red became very popular in the Dutch settlements in Pennsylvania where they built with red bricks, planted red geraniums and painted barns red," Apps said.
Because ready-made paint and commercial sealers weren't available at the time, farmers had to be resourceful in finding or making a paint that would protect the wood of the largest structural investment on their farm.
"Over in Europe, farmers painted farm buildings with linseed oil (an orange-colored oil derived from the seeds of the flax plant) and colored it inexpensively using animal blood and adding ferrous oxide (rust), resulting in a quiet red, not the fire engine red we sometimes see today," Apps said.
Instead of using blood, many farmers preferred to use milk and lime, which helped the oil stick to the wood better. The iron in the rust was believed to prevent fungus and mildew from growing and rotting the wood. The combination of elements resulted in a long-lasting paint that dried and hardened quickly.
Apps said some farmers left the barn wood to weather to natural shades of gray, but most chose to paint their new barn.
"...(A) red barn with white trim provided a pleasing contrast to a white farmhouse," he said.
The color red also appeased farmers' innate frugality. By the mid- to late-1800s in the U.S., red paint became the cheapest option due to the affordability and availability of chemical pigments, according to the Library of Congress.
"Manufactured paints were available by that time and they often included red pigments and red lead. White paint was also available but the red lead paint was less expensive," Apps said. "Back in the day when you came upon a farmstead with a white barn, all the neighbors with red barns thought that particular farmer was trying to show off because he could afford to paint his barn white."
The arrival of lead-based paints appeared to be a major advance in technology. Adding lead to paint increased its durability and coverage. According to the Building Performance Association, the addition of various lead compounds enhanced colors, promoted drying, and had many other advantages.
There was one big drawback — lead was very poisonous. Weber said his father, Larry Scott, often used lead-based paints in his barn painting business back in the 1940s-'60s.
"After a while, the paint would peel and drop into the cow yard. The cows would eat the sweet-tasting peelings and die from lead poisoning," Weber said.
Weber says they currently use a special acrylic paint, unless the owner prefers an oil-based paint.
When Scott's now-retired father started his painting business in the 1940s, jobs painting barns and farm buildings were plentiful, but the work was hard.
"Back then he used a heavy 60-foot wooden ladder that took three men to move. He also hand-scraped the barn before painting. He also used very heavy brass spray guns," Weber said.
Today, Weber uses an aerial lift truck to perform prep work and then spray paints the barns.
"I can usually paint a barn in less than 8 hours," Weber said.
A gallon of good red paint costs between $15 and $20. Depending on the dimensions of the barn, the amount of paint needed and the aerial truck's ability to get close to the building, Weber says the cost to paint a barn today can range between $5,000 and $15,000.
The majority of Weber's customers nowadays are hobby farmers. The loss of small family farms and consolidation of farming operations have left many traditional barns to house steers and heifers, or be used as a storage facility.
"They've converted modern dairy barns into pole buildings with metal walls and roofs," said Weber who paints around 6 to 10 barns a year. "You have to travel far and wide to find (barns to paint). I see barns all over that are just rotting away. Luckily, there are people out there that like to keep them restored."
Apps writes that "old barns are rapidly becoming relics of the past...and represent a period in Wisconsin agriculture that is rapidly changing."
With larger milking herds and the increasing complexity of farm operations, farmers find that the old milking barns have outlived their use and have been replaced by long, sleek metal structures.
"Old barns don't die easily," Apps concludes. "Once the roof begins leaking...the barn's days are numbered. The rain seeps in and causes the roof boards to rot. Then, like a cancer in a living organism, the rot moves through the structure, slowly during the first years, more rapidly as increasing amounts of moisture enter the doomed building.
"An abandoned barn is marked for death. It will die quietly, surrounded by field crops, a new housing development, a shopping center. No one notices except the occasional person who drives by and exclaims, "What a terrible eyesore! Why doesn't someone tear down that old building?"
This article originally appeared on Wisconsin State Farmer: Why are most barns in Wisconsin painted red? Here's the history