Fire Destroys Historic Barn

WAITSBURG - Diane Dill and her son Alex didn't lose everything Saturday.

Their horses were outside when the fire in the barn on Bolles Road started just before noon, and two of their four goats were saved by Brian Seagraves, who runs the cabinet shop next door.

Still, Alex Dill lost Raffle, the pregnant goat he has owned since he joined 4-H in fourth grade, and Frosty, another pregnant goat he got a year and a half ago.

"I was pretty sad," said the 16-year-old Waitsburg High School sophomore who is now in FFA. "I was going to show the babies at the fairs."

The two animals died in the inferno believed to have been caused by an accident with a heat lamp. Fire fighters from several local districts responded to the structure blaze, which sent up smoke that could be seen for miles.

It was the third structure fire in a little more than a month. On Christmas Eve, Steve Long lost his house on Lower Hogeye Road to a fire, and just last week Andy and Pam Hermanns' Second Street garage and two cars went up in flames in a midnight fire law enforcement officials are still investigat- ing .

The Dill family had a long-term arrangement to use the historic barn for their animals in exchange for keeping it up. It was owned by Patty Mantz and her sister, Lynn Mantz Powers, whose ancestors built the center part of the building in the middle of the 19th century.

"It has to be at least 150 years old, probably closer to 160 years," Mantz said about a structure first erected by her great- great-grandfather and pioneer William McKinney. Later generations built new portions on its north and south sides, she said.

Although the building, used over time for farm equipment , cows and, more recently for the Dills' animals, was insured for $67,000, it isn't the kind of historic asset that can be rebuilt the way it was, Mantz said.

"You can't put a value on something like that," she said. "There is no way you can replace it like it was."

By the time the fire was discovered and fire fighters arrived on the scene from the Main Street station, the barn was fully engulfed. There was little they could do other than keep it from spreading on the ranch, whose land is owned by Todd and Bethann Wood.

Mantz said she was close to getting the building, one of the oldest of its kind in the valley, on the historical register, but she ran out of time before last year's government deadline.

The center portion of the structure was built by hand, using square timbers and nails, said Mantz, who regrets not getting the paperwork in on time.

Although no one is exactly sure how the heat lamps started the fire, Mantz speculated one of the pregnant goats may have accidentally kicked one of them over.

Meanwhile, Alex Dill still plans to show baby goats this year as he expects at least Joe, the surviving female he has had since 5th grade, will deliver at least a couple of kids this spring.