The Athens State Hospital Cow Barn is a historic agricultural building on the grounds of the former state hospital in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. One of several agricultural buildings associated with the hospital, it has been named a

historic site A historic site or heritage site is an official location where pieces of political, military, cultural, or social history have been preserved due to their cultural heritage value. Historic sites are usually protected by law, and many have been rec ...

. The Athens State Hospital was founded in 1874, pursuant to legislation enacted seven years prior. Within three years, the hospital was contracting with a local blacksmith to buy milk from his dairy, but by the early twentieth century, this arrangement had proven inconvenient, and in 1912 the hospital bought the farm associated with the dairy operation. Two years later, the present cow barn was erected near the old farmhouse. This was a time of expansion for the hospital complex, which retains numerous buildings from the beginning of the twentieth century; like much of the rest of the hospital, the cow barn displays

Colonial Revival The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture. The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the archi ...

architectural influences, unlike the substantially older farmhouse next door. The barn itself is a linear concrete building with some shingles on the walls, a concrete

foundation Foundation may refer to: * Foundation (nonprofit), a type of charitable organization ** Foundation (United States law), a type of charitable organization in the U.S. ** Private foundation, a charitable organization that, while serving a good cause ...

, and a

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

-covered

gambrel A gambrel or gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. (The usual architectural term in eighteenth-century England and North America was "Dutch roof".) The upper slope is positioned at a shallow angle, w ...

roof. Three towers are placed on the

roofline Roofline is used to describe the fascia, soffits, bargeboards, antefixes and cladding that forms the frontage immediately below the roof and the eaves of many homes and buildings. These are traditionally made from wood, but can be made of a ...

, while

dormer windows A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a Roof pitch, pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the ...

pierce the lower part of the roof at regular intervals. A prominent entryway is set in the middle of the long side of the building, with six window-filled

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...

to each side. In 1978, the old cow barn was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

, qualifying both because of its place in local history and because of its historically significant architecture. Two years later, much of the state hospital complex was designated a

historic district A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...

and listed on the Register, but the cow barn was not included, as it lies away from the rest of the complex. No longer in agricultural use, the barn has been converted into an

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

, the Dairy Barn Arts Center.Home
Dairy Barn Arts Center, 2013. Accessed 2014-02-24.

References

External links

Dairy Barn Arts Center
{{National Register of Historic Places Buildings and structures completed in 1914 Art museums and galleries in Ohio Barns on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Athens County, Ohio Colonial Revival architecture in Ohio Dairy buildings in the United States Tourist attractions in Athens County, Ohio Barns in Ohio Buildings and structures in Athens, Ohio