New Book ‘Hand Raised’ a Tribute to Montana’s Historical Barns

A new book by the Montana Historical Society Press, “Hand Raised: The Barns of Montana,” is a tribute to the people and hard work that helped build this state.

Concerned that historic barns are endangered in today’s changing agricultural landscape, the book’s authors Chere Jiusto and Christine Brown traveled the state to bring attention to those who are working hard to save them. The stories of the barns are as powerful as the stories of the people who are committed to preserving them.

Out of more than 6,000 historic Montana barns identified in a statewide survey, Jiusto and Brown tell the stories of about 140 of the most beautiful and unusual across the state.

“More than anything, this book is a call to action,” they write in the book’s introduction. “It is an effort to turn attention to these buildings and to raise interest in preserving them before they are gone.”

Society photographer Tom Ferris also traveled the state to illustrate the book with more than 500 images that reflect the barns as works of art born of the labor of people who loved the land.

The coffee-table-style book is organized into chapters on barn building traditions, agricultural settlement of Montana, and chapters on barns of Western Valleys, the Great Divide, Missouri River Country, and the Yellowstone Basin.

The barns range from the luxurious horse barn built near Hamilton by copper baron Marcus Daly for his favorite race horse Tammany for winning the New Jersey Suburban Stakes in 1894, to the three-tiered Doncaster Round Barn near Twin Bridges, to the J.C. Adams Stone Barn in Cascade County, to the Naylor Big Barn lambing shed in Fergus County, to the Thirty Mile Stage Barn in Musselshell County, to the Fisher Farmstead Dairy Barn in Park County, to the Doyle Hay Barn in Richland County.

The history of each barn is featured along with the family stories up to the present day of those who built them, those who worked them, and those who are preserving them today.

“Hand Raised: The Barns of Montana” is available at local bookstores, or can be ordered directly from the Society by calling 1-800-243-9900, or online at www.montanahistoricalsociety.org. The 305-page book with more than 500 color illustrations sells for $39.95 in hard cover.