When the Fulks family opened up Belvedere for the public to pick pumpkins in 1983 there wasn’t a whole lot to do. Nowadays of course there is more things to do than you can shake a stick at in a whole month of Sundays.
Back then though you rode the hayride out to the Great Pumpkin Patch, picked your pumpkins, visited the animals, and swung on the ropes in the Fun Barn! The Fun Barn was originally used to store hay. Built in the early 1920s the barn is just a few years shy of a century old and was built to store fodder. During the summer months the middle bay where the rope swings are now, was filled with hay up to the rafters . During the cold months cattle were moved into the side bays and ate the stored hay all winter.
Come spring when the pastures greened up the cows were herded out of the barn and you can believe the farmers had a mess to clean up then! During the 1950s a tremendous wind storm came out of the west and nearly blew the barn down. Tractors and horse teams pulled the leaning barn back up, and whole sycamore trunks were cut down and used in the side bays to brace the barn and keep any future storms from blowing it all the way down.
It seems to have worked because the barn still stands straight and true today. By the 1980s the Fulks family had ceased raising beef cattle as they were too busy growing grain, pick your own strawberries, and pumpkins. Farmer Donnie came up with the bright idea of installing rope swings and straw for cushioning and so the Fun Barn was born.
Still one of the most popular activities,
no visit to Belvedere is complete without a swing in the Fun Barn.
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