The Brown-Swisher Barn, in Rockbridge County’s Walkers Creek Valley, embodies the distinctive characteristics of a bank barn (also known as a Pennsylvania barn) construction, a form of Swiss origin that German settlers brought to the Shenandoah Valley. The Brown-Swisher Barn’s character-defining aspects include its placement against a bank to provide wheeled access to its upper-level haymow, threshing floor, hay drops, and forebay; the latter created by an overshoot or overhang of the upper level over the lower level and foundation resulting in one of the most distinctive elements of the bank barn form. The lower level consists of animal stalls with Dutch doors and slatted vents and an interior lane or run for livestock. Other notable features of the Brown-Swisher Barn include pegged mortise-and-tenon timber-frame construction. A local barn builder erected the structure around 1918 during a nationwide agricultural boom sparked by World War I that increased local farm values.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia