I’ve just about worn out the story of the old round barn that so impressed so many for so long as they drove by the Lillibridge place in Brookings County a few miles north of White.

But that circular barn that was disassembled in 1983 at the former site of Pleasant Hill Farm and its 1,000 acres led me to a square house also at that farm.

The house was unusual. It was ordered by mail out of the Sears-Roebuck Catalogue in 1905 at a cost of about $750.

All of the lumber, the detailed plans, the windows, the fancy, roof ridge filigree and everything needed arrived by rail, probably at Toronto near the Brookings County line.

It probably was then hauled a couple miles south by horse and wagon on many trips back and forth to the Lillibridge farm in Brookings County.

As my previous barn bloviation indicated, the barn’s now gone. I also mentioned in passing that the residence on the round barn farmstead was gone, too.

By that I meant it no longer existed.

That was – in today’s vernacular – fake news.

I’ve since learned from folks who follow White and Toronto news closely that, by golly, it does exist. It’s up there all bright and shiny north of White.      

It even has one of those gosh-awful tongue-tying addresses – 47925 200th St.

If you’re like me and wonder where in the heck that is, just go north from White, look for 200th Street, head east on the oil, go round a jog in the road and over a bridge and soon it’s there off to your left (south).

But you can’t see it because trees hide what is now a very handsome, comfortable home of farmer Tony Patrick, who still praises his father, Norris, for having had the foresight – and the cash – to buy at auction the old home of the Henry A. Lillibridge family.

Tony was just a kid going along for the ride, but he remembers the auction was about the mid-1990s. It was a cold January day. The bidding started high, of course. 

But none of the shivering potential buyers took the auctioneer’s bait and raised their gloved hand in agreement.

The price cried by the auctioneer kept going down until Norris Patrick was declared the winner of that $750, 1902 catalogue house, at a price of $2,500.

Of course, it took another several thousand dollars to get it moved the few miles to the Patrick farmstead where a new foundation awaited. And then there were refurbishing costs, but even adding all that into the mix, it was still a bargain.

During the refurbishing, the rotting roof ridge filigree was removed. 

“We just didn’t want to have to get a ladder and repaint the stuff every few years,” Tony told me. 

By the way, in the process of learning about this Sears/Roebuck abode, I learned about another barn in the area. This one had a relationship to the huge old livery barn once a landmark in White.

But that’s another story I may bloviate about next time around.