Change . . .Like a semi truck that lost its brakes rolling out of control down I-5 from the Siskiyou summit,  changes are rolling through the rural lands of the Rogue Valley.  

Dirt roads are paved and orchards are cut down as golf courses, subdivisions and shopping malls spring up to forever change the landscape of our valley.

 

Yet, on the outskirts of Ashland, a small group locals are working to save a piece of the valley's rural history, the 100 year-old timber frame barn on the campus of Willow Wind Community Learning Center, an alternative education site for Ashland Public Schools.  A group of educators, families and friends are partnering with the Ashland School District and the Ashland Schools Foundation to raise funds to rebuild the old barn that has stood tall as a part of the rural landscape of the southern Rogue Valley for more than a century.

 

By changing the old barn into a new gathering space, the group hopes to preserve a pioneer relic and at the same time create a new place for Ashland students to learn and the community to gather.  The restored barn will retain the look and feel of a turn-of-the-century barn, but will be rebuilt to be used for educational and community activities. The story of the old barn at Willow Wind is an example of how changes can happen in a positive way--old treasures can be recreated and used again.

You can easily spot the old barn when driving down East Main street towards downtown Ashland or driving on Interstate 5.  The large yellow barn stands tall on the old pioneer ranch at 1497 E. Main just outside the urban growth boundary in Ashland, now the campus of Willow Wind Community Learning Center.

Built in the late 1890s, the Willow Wind barn is probably one of the oldest timber frame structures in the valley and most certainly one of the oldest agricultural buildings still standing.  So many barns around Jackson county have disappeared over the past few decades.  Some have fallen a part or burned and some have been taken down to make way for development.   

Year after year, this old barn has endured on the outskirts of town watching the dusty pioneer village of "Ashland Mills"  transform into a booming western timber town and then, over a course of one hundred years, into thriving center of education and culture in Southern Oregon.   The old barn was first used as a home for cattle and horses in the 1890s.  For many, many years, sheep were probably housed in the under structure of the barn.  Lanolin from the sheep's wool has smoothed the old timbers.  In Ashland's early days, most families made their living by farming and the barn is an artifact of this way of life.  Starting during the years of the Great Depression and up to the 1970s, the Inlow family lived on the Willow Wind farm and transformed the old barn into a dairy barn.  You can still find dates scratched out in the barn that the Inlows used to record their cows' gestation times.  

Changes rolled full steam into the Rogue valley when the baby boomers came of age in the 1970s and changes too, came to pass at on the Willow Wind property. 

 

During the 70s, the Och family became long time owners of the barn and the old pioneer ranch.  The Ochs continued to raise animals in the barn, but also were the first to start using this old farm for education and established the Chautauqua Ranch School there.  Hundreds of local children experienced country farm life as a part of their preschool experience with the Ochs.

Years later in the late 1990s, the Waldorf School of the Rogue Valley was moved to the farm. But faced with financial challenges, the Waldorf School disbanded and the property was later put on the market.  The Ashland School District purchased the farm in the year 2000 and began using the ranch as a center for alternative education.

The old pioneer ranch at 1497 E. Main still looks like a typical old Oregon farm, with a hay field in the front acres, an old farm house and the old barn standing tall in the center of the property and the back acres filled with willows and wetlands.  Now, home to Willow Wind Community Learning Center, the farm serves more than 200 students who participate in alternative education programs offered there by the Ashland School District. ashland.k12.or.us  Willow Wind programs and classes are designed to support federal and state educational standards but also offer a more flexible educational choice for families in the school district.

So, the barn at Willow Wind has witnessed many changes on the property and watched hundreds of children change and grow as they played and learned on the old farm.

 

While change is inevitable, changes to the rural nature of Southern Oregon can reduce our community's sense of place explains Judith Anne McBride, a teacher at Willow Wind and a member of the volunteer fundraising committee for the Willow Wind barn rebuiding project.

"This old barn still has a lot to give to our community," claims McBride  "The timber framework inside is an excellent example of old time craftsmanship, but more than that, rebuilding the barn so that it can be used for classroom space and community gatherings will give our students and their families a strong sense of place and connection to local history."

A teacher for more than two decades in Ashland public schools, McBride has seen many changes.  "Our children need to learn how to deal with changes" she explains "But we can also teach them that old things have value and can be saved and put back into use for the community in new ways."

As an alternative program for the Ashland School District, Willow Wind offers a wide variety of classes--but the performing arts classes are squeezed into a small modular classroom.  Although the small classrooms work well for many other  Willow Wind classes, there is no indoor space where a large group of students can gather to eat lunch and no indoor space for family events.   Families and teachers felt that if the old barn could be renovated and made accessible to students, the needs of the Willow Wind students would be met and a piece of Rogue Valley history would be saved. 

Open fields, streams, ponds and wetlands on the Willow Wind property serve as outdoor classrooms for science classes for Ashland students and visiting students from the region.  Klamath Bird Observatory klamathbirdobservatory, a research organization that advances bird and habitat conservation through science, brings busloads of students to Willow Wind for field trips so the students can experience scientific research first hand in a natural environment.  For now, the old yellow barn is used to the store some of the scientists' equipment, but John Alexander, director of Klamath Bird Observatory, looks forward to the day when the barn can be used as as an indoor orientation space for hands-on science education.

"Currently, our program is limited by weather," notes Alexander. "The barn would allow us to conduct efforts regardless of rain or shine."

Scientists with Klamath Bird Observatory monitor changes in our bioregion that relate to bird populations and habitat.  While some changes in region decrease bird habitat and may negatively affect many species, other changes can happen that improve wildlife habitat. 

An ongoing project of Klamath Bird Observatory is to measure the benefits of riparian restoration projects  implemented on the Willow Wind property by another local group, the Lomakatsi Restoration Project Lomakatsi Lomakatsi foresters have been working with local students for more than a decade to plant native species along the streams and wetlands on the Willow Wind farm, restoring the land that had been grazed by cattle for more than 50 years. A new generation of Ashlanders are working to change the fields back into a more natural state and a new generation of scientists are monitoring the effects of work on wildlife.  

Now  the old barn at 1497 E. Main is beginning to see the land change again and soon the old barn itself will undergo a change, its transformation into a community hall on the Willow Wind campus.  

 

If you're interested in supporting the barn project, contact , email jmcbride@opendoor.com