While Trot Insider has reported on equipment and other items in the past that may have been accidentally taken or possibly stolen, we've yet to report on a stolen barn. Until now.
Reports out of Iowa indicate that a barn dating back more than 100 years was systematically dismantled last month, with thieves hauling off 24-foot-long sections of hand-hewn beams, walls, floors, the original hay door and more.
According to an article in the Quad City Times, the barn belonged to the Ruggeberg family, whose 88-year-old patriarch Everett was too frail to continue to take care of the land. More than a year ago, he was placed into a retirement community where his surviving brother Ken was living. The farm was left in the hands of Everett's daughter Sally.
Sally came up with a plan for the property that would see the 37-acre plot turned into workable land and barn eventually taken down and salvaged.
"I painted a picture of the barn when I was in high school," she told The Times. "I can't tell you how many hours we spent in there, stacking hay. It was the last building to be taken down. I knew the barn board would be worth something, so we had a salvage plan."
When Sally found what had happened to the barn, she said it felt like a "kick in the gut" and knew that it must have been the plan of a group. The remains show whoever came in had a generator and power tools to help take apart the barn.
"What they did to the barn -- what was left of it -- made it so unsafe, we had to knock it down before we could salvage anything that was left."
Police set up surveillance cameras in the event the thieves came back for more. They did not.
"I spoke to, in total, 15 different people," Deputy Tom Christoffersen of the Clinton County Sheriff's Department told The Times. "No one had any information for me. It (the investigation) is closed in the sense we don't have any suspects. If we got any new information, we would follow up."