My first impression was this barn is big, uncommonly large and well built. It was built for a specific purpose--to house dairy cattle and to store loose hay and other feeds for them to last through the long, northern winters.

The walls of the lower level are two feet thick and composed of split basalt boulders.  Each rock was chosen and placed so that the walls, doors and window openings are straight and relatively smooth.  To provide the proper material, some of the large boulders had to be heated in a fire, then doused with water to cause them to split.  The workmanship is evidence of a skill that is no longer available or affordable.

The barn is large for its type, forty feet wide and one hundred and twenty feet long.  The second story is thirty feet high from the haymow floor to the ridge pole.  The outstanding feature of the haymow is the thirty-six tall, square, clear, eight by eight posts that support the walls and roof.  They stand in four long rows.  The outer two posts of each set of four support the side walls, and the tops of each set of posts are connected by an eight by eight inch beam that runs the forty feet across the width of the barn; from thence, posts stan connecting the central posts at a forty-five degree angle outward to the point where the roof changes pitch.  There are nine sets of these posts in the haymow.  The roof is as straight as the day it was built.  Two inclined driveways give access to the haymow from the northwest with doors large enough to admit a farm wagon load of hay.