UW Barn Gets Upgrade As Gov Tries To Boost Dairy Production

This Saturday, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) holds an open house for a remodeled barn – a historical part of campus that gives a glimpse of how Wisconsin became the Dairy State.

With California nipping at our heels, Governor Scott Walker wants Wisconsin to produce more milk. Part of that effort entails upgrading campus dairy facilities for research and teaching.

Mike Peters is dairy herd manager at UW-Madison’s College of Agriculture. He will be on hand this weekend for the dedication of a remodeled dairy barn holding 80 cows.

“It’s a unique setting in that our professors can be teaching a class and in five minutes can move from a lecture hall into a hands-on lab and be showing what they were just talking about right with dairy cattle, right in the city of Madison.”

The newly remodeled barn was built in 1956, just a stone’s throw away from the original campus barn, still standing after 114 years. In a tour over a decade ago, UW biotechnology outreach specialist Tom Zinnen describes how the old barn looked and why it should be preserved on a fast growing, modern campus in the heart of Madison.

“It’s a big white gable roof with a silo that’s rather remarkable: brick with a stone foundation. It looks very much like a light house in some aspects.”

The original barn was built in 1898 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built for $16,000. The newly remodeled barn cost $3.5 million.