Stable, Motor Mill Historic Site, Iowa --------
I was running out of time last night, hence my blog post with photos only. So here is a little more information that I found in the brochure of Motor Mill Historic Site.
The Inn at the town of Motor I showed you yesterday provided rooms and offered meals to farmers waiting overnight for their grain. The mill was finished in 1869 but was actually in operation for only 13 years. A farmer, Louis Klink, purchased the land in 1903 and farmed it for nearly 80 years. During that time the Inn served as a home for the Klink family.
My first image today shows the stable that is next to the Inn. It housed the animals of the patrons of the Inn. Native limestone from a nearby quarry was used to construct it. The hip-type roof was added in the early 1900’s when the building was changed to a dairy barn. We can still see the original straight roofline below.
Smokehouse and bridge
This building was long thought to be the icehouse. It was recently discovered that it was actually a smokehouse where meat was cured during the mid-late 1800’s.
The bridge in the back across the Turkey River is a 2012 replica of the 1899 pin-and-truss iron bridge, which had been destroyed by floods in 1991 and 2008. As mentioned in an earlier post, we have been at Motor Mill a couple years before and I had already seen the potential for some good photos at this location. Finally I got what I was hoping for. It is the light before and around sunset that really reveals the charm of these old structures.
So, what about the little bunny sitting in front of the smokehouse? Well, it was just sitting there, not the subject of the photo, but making the smile in my face even bigger that evening…