Lowe Barn

Lowe Barn. Built: 1911 Moved: 1976. , Building a Bigger Barn , Wesley and Mary Lowe farmed a variety of crops in the Anona region, a community that grew up around Wesley's father's homestead. As their family business grew, so did the need for a larger barn. By 1911 the family replaced a smaller barn with this one. Wesley's son Sumner recalled "handing wood up from the little barn to his father" as the family salvaged the best lumber for the new building. , The Lowes stored hay in the barn and they kept horses and cows. Sumner fondly remembered his father kept a horse drawn buggy and wagon in this barn before they purchased their first automobile. , Livestock in Largo? , Paul Randolph purchased the Lowe property in the late 1940s for cattle and horses at Randolph farms. As late as the 1960s, his cowhands herded cattle to nearby pastures from the barn across the quiet and little traveled Indian Rocks Road. The original site of the barn is now part of the Randolph Farms Condominiums. , Building Nuts and Bolts , Wesley Lowe used cypress lumber, a rot resistant wood, as the foundation for this functional structure. The new owner Paul Randolph added the stables and pens on each side of the barn. , Tidbits from Time , A Rare Sight , Barns like this were not a common sight on the Pinellas landscape because cattle were permitted to range freely in Florida until 1949. Other agriculture, like citrus, did not require this type of storage. , Garage or Barn? , At one time the barn doubled as a garage where farm animals shared space with the family's Model T Ford as they once did with the family buggy.