Marshville Heritage Society's Heritage preservation

During the last half of the 19th century in Ontario, thousands of barns were built as the pioneer farmers went from subsistence living, log cabins and barns to clearing more land and needing a larger barn to house hay and straw with stables below for the livestock, all in one building.

Why were barns traditionally painted red? Early farmers painted their barns with a protective coating of linseed oil to keep the wood from weathering. They often mixed the oil with animal blood or ferrous oxide, which prevented the growth of mold and fungi and also gave the paint a distinctive red-orange color.

Today the Pietz Barn shelters horse drawn farm equipment including agricultural tools/machinery, horse drawn carriage, buggy, hearse, dump and covered wagon.