Illinois is a diverse state in terms of its geography, and the ethnic heritage of those who settled the state.  As such, many different agricultural strategies were employed by the state's farmers--and the outbuildings present on the rural landscape reflects those varied agricultural strategies.  The largest, and most significant outbuilding on a farm, generally was the barn.  Barns can tell us an immense amount of information regarding the agricultural practices of the farmer working the land--but unfortunately, these structures are disappearing at an alarming rate.  The following are some of the barns documented by Fever River Research over the past years.  Clicking on the name of the barn will open the original contract report within a PDF document (some of these are relatively large files and will take some time to download).