Darn Barn !

News report from Bruno , NE In 1981, Herman Ostry and
his wife, Donna, bought a farm a half mile outside of
Bruno , Nebraska , a small community sixty
miles west of Omaha .. The property had a creek and
came with a barn built in the 1920's. The barn
floor was always wet and muddy. When the creek
flooded in 1988, the barn ended up with 29 inches
of water covering the floor. That was the last
straw. Ostry needed to move it to higher ground.
He contacted a building moving company and was
discouraged by the bid. One night around the
table, Ostry commented that if they had enough
people they could pick the barn up and move it to
higher ground.. Everyone laughed.
A few days later, Ostry’s son Mike showed his father some
calculations. He had counted the individual boards
and timbers in the barn and estimated that the barn
weighed approximately 16,640 pounds. He also estimated
that a steel grid needed to move the barn would
add another 3,150 pounds, bringing the total
weight to just under 10 tons. He figured it would
take around 350 people with each person lifting 56
lbs. to move the barn.
The town of Bruno , Nebraska was planning its centennial celebration
in late July of 1988. Herman and Mike presented
their barn moving idea to the committee. The
committee decided to make it part of their celebration.

So, on July 30, 1988, shortly
before 11 a.m., a quick test lift was successfully
made. Then, as local television cameras and 4,000
people from eleven states watched, 350 people
moved the barn 115 feet south and 6 feet higher up
a gentle slope and set it on its new foundation.

The reason most people think that something cannot be
done is because they know that they can’t do it by
themselves. But impossible things can be done if
we join together in the task. Working together,
we can not only move barns, but change the world.