DAYTON People are dismantling, moving and rebuilding some timber-framed barns to preserve the old structures, many of which have been lost due to neglect, housing developments and natural causes.

Rudy Christian has a family business in Wayne County that dismantled a Civil War-era barn in the Dayton suburb of Miamisburg and moved it to George Rogers Clark State Park near Springfield. He estimates at least one-third of Ohio's timber-framed barns — many of them built in the late 1800s — have been lost.

"They represent really the peak of ... one of the trades that this country was built on, and that's timber framing," Christian said. "It represents such an important part of our cultural heritage."

The construction method involves heavy timber usually joined with wooden pegs. Today's barn construction typically uses smaller lumber fastened with nails.

Steve Gordon, formerly of the Ohio Historical Society, estimates 35,000 timber-framed barns built in Ohio before 1910 survive.