PHOTO BY MEGHAN ERKKINEN

Crews are busy working on the restoration of a barn, previously owned by the Dacca family. The barn will serve as an assembly area for city functions and private events.

Historical society works on barn renovation

By Meghan Erkkinen

Larry Dacca remembers when his father hired a local contractor to build a barn at the family farm. It was around 1960, and farmer Louis Dacca wanted a place to store some of his farm equipment and wash and store vegetables before distributing them in the region.

The barn was built on the Dacca property, off of 54th Street just north of the railroad tracks in Fife. It measures 70 feet by 40 feet, with concrete floors and three doors, a large one in the front and two smaller ones on the sides. The barn is wide open, without beams obstructing its interior, and has high eaves.

“You could drive a cement truck in there and you’d have plenty of clearance,” Larry Dacca said. “We wanted the barn to be as cool as possible – that’s why we had a high roof.”

Louis Dacca continued to farm on his property until the few years preceding his death in 1993. Larry Dacca and others continued to use the land and the barn through the late 1990s.

After about 40 years in operation, the city of Fife acquired the barn and the Dacca household, which has since become the Fife History Museum. The barn was relocated next door to the museum, only a few hundred feet north of its former location.

A new metal roof was installed on the barn earlier this year. In August, the city council authorized the expenditure of $130,000 to complete the barn renovation project.

“It’s something that we’ve been trying to do for a long time,” said Louise Hospenthal, president of the Fife Historical Society.

The building would be the largest venue in Fife, Hospenthal said, and could be used for museum and city events such as the Fife Harvest Festival and for private events, such as for baseball banquets after games at the nearby Dacca Park.

During the remodel, crews will install restroom facilities and a serving kitchen in the barn. Alongside the barn, crews are installing a stone wall and train tracks. A caboose, which is being restored by volunteers, will be placed on the tracks and the wall will be filled in to serve as an observation area and patio.

Former Fife Mayor Mike Kelley is donating his time to facilitate and oversee the remodel.

“There are all kinds of community events we could have here,” he said. “It will be an as-

sembly area for the city for various functions.”

Kelley is working to get as much of the materials and labor for the project donated as possible, so more of the money allocated can go toward clean-up and historical preservation of the building. He would like to leave the trusses exposed, but they need to be sandblasted.

“The more we get done here without writing checks, the more we can do that stuff,” Kelley said.

The barn became something of a landmark in Fife, because of its size and unique design, and because of the disappearing agricultural community it represents.

Over the years, Louis Dacca made dated notes with a black crayon on the barn’s walls. He remarked on devastating storms, hot weather and the day one of his employees fell asleep in the radishes. On the door of the cooler, which has since been removed from the barn, Dacca noted the date each year when sparrows would come in the spring and leave in the fall.

The historical society hopes the project will be complete in time for next year’s Harvest Festival, in October.

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