The Caleb Crosby Threshing Barn

The Caleb Crosby Threshing Barn. . Humans have relied on grains for millennia as the main staple of their diet. People must thresh wheat and grind corn in grist mills to make flour for eating. "Threshing" refers to removing the edible grains from the end of the cut and dried plant stalks. Traditionally, a flail beat the stalks against a wooden "threshing floor" within a bar or shed. Once separated from the stem, mills ground the grain into flour for consumption or sale., Caleb Crosby designed this threshing barn for his farm in Grainger County in the 1830's, and it was built through family and slave labor. Oxen or mule power turned this unique and unusual barn into a giant machine that threshed the Crosby farm's wheat. Like many other American farmers at this time, the Crosby family was developing ways to speed production and get more out of the land., The threshing barn stood in its original location on the Crosby farm along the Holston River for another century. But Tennessee Valley Authority's construction of Cherokee Dam threatened to destroy the structure. In 1940, the Crosby family donated the barn to the Cades Cove project in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. However, since it was not originally in Cades Cove, park administrators chose not to rebuild it. After 30 years in storage, National Park Service officials transferred the barn to Norris Dam State Park to join the historic Rice Gristmill. State officials reassembled the barn here in 1975., [Caption #1]: , The Crosby Threshing Barn in its original location in Grainger County, Tennessee c. 1940 , [Caption #2]: Thrashing with the Flail