The land the Luther barn sat on near Wisner, NE has been in the same family since 1906. The current owners' great uncle purchased the farm from a gentleman who lived in Iowa. A home, barn and cattle yards were built on the 160 acres and over the years various family members lived in the small home near the barn.

A quarter mile to the east, land was settled by the owners' great-grandparents and is where their grandfather grew up.  Just to the north of this barn, the owners' grandparents lived in the main house, called the Home Place. The owners' mother was born on the Home Place and grew up doing chores around the farm, such as cooking, washing and ironing, canning and gathering eggs. She spent 1st-8th grade with 15 other children in a one-room schoolhouse on family land used by the county district.  As a child, she would build tree houses in the tree grove and explore the world through reading.

The farmsteads that make up the entirety of the Luther land were independent of each other, and for decades the home and barn pictured here was rented out to hired families or occupied by family members. In its early years, the small barn housed horses and milk cows. Though the farm was used primarily to raise cattle, there were also fields of corn, soybeans, barley, oats, and even an apple orchard.

We had been in the process of reclaiming the barn when, in June 2014, a tornado ripped through the property, leveling the barn and damaging several of the homes. Luckily no one was injured, and we were able to salvage much of the wood. The Luther family’s story lives on in each barnwood tray.

We’d like to extend a special thanks to the owners and their family for sharing their history with us.