The horses were replaced in the mid-1940s with a B John Deere.

The farm’s ownership began with great-grandfather Ernest Applegate in 1902. His daughter Sylva was born in the Nall’s home. She married Clarence Nall and they were parents to Richard Nall, Dwight’s father.

Richard Nall was farming on his own in the mid-1950s and farmed for the next 50 years. He was still driving the combine at age 89.

“It was hard to keep him out of the combine,” said Dwight Nall.

At age 60, Dwight Nall’s earliest memory of the barn is driving the tractor that pulled the rope lifting the bales into the haymow when he was around 5 or 6 years old.

“It was before I was in school,” he said.

The barn was used to finish feeder pigs in the ’70s and for farrowing in the ’80s. A lean-to on the east side was added in 1992 for farrowing.

Dwight Nall was told by his dad, Richard Nall, to “keep hay in it or it will blow away.”

It takes 1,500 bales to fill the haymow. The mow has held both hay and straw bales, plus bales of straw with oats that had not been combined as they were baled on set-aside acres.

The barn is still in use with a few cattle and pigs.

In 2008, Richard Nall looked at the barn and gave his son Dwight some advice.

“You need to fix this,” he told his son.

The north and west sides of the barn received new siding and a new roof in 2008. The south side got new siding in 2014.

“By then we were committed,” said Dwight Nall.

The barn’s renovation was completed in 2015.

Dwight and Donna Nall’s three children kept calves and sheep in the barn when they were 4-H members.

Last Sept. 3, Labor Day, the barn took on added importance when Benjamin Dirks of Monticello proposed to Dwight and Donna’s daughter Jordan in front of the barn. Dirks had already asked her parents if they approved beforehand.

Of course, they approved. The wedding will be in June.