By 1808Delaware
In 2003, when Ohio marked 200 years of statehood, 88 barns across the state were painted with a distinctive Ohio Bicentennial logo. Each became a roadside landmark, a quiet signal that history was not confined to courthouses and monuments but lived in fields and fence lines. One of those barns stands in southern Delaware County.
Or rather, stood.
This year, that Delaware County Bicentennial Barn is being carefully taken apart board by board inside McCammon Creek Park in Orange Township, preparing for a move to a new foundation a short distance away. What might look at first glance like demolition is actually preservation in motion. The barn is not being removed. It is being reborn. And when it returns, it will carry both its past and its future under the same roof.
A centerpiece for a park still coming into view
McCammon Creek Park, located along East Orange Road near Bale Kenyon Road in the Lewis Center area, is still in its early chapters. Visitors today will not yet find playgrounds, shelters, or a bustling event center. What they will find is space. Meadow. Woodland. A trail that curves through both.
The Red Fox Trail, about 1.5 miles in a looping path with a slightly longer figure-eight option, is currently the primary public feature. It is the kind of trail where you are more likely to encounter wild turkeys, hawks, butterflies, and rabbits than crowds. In warmer months, a science-themed StoryWalk lines part of the path, pairing children’s books with small literacy and nature prompts as families move through the landscape. From time to time, the county park district schedules guided hikes and special programs that bring a bit more activity to the quiet.
For now, McCammon Creek is a place for walking, observing, and imagining what is coming next. Because what is coming next is substantial.
A barn becomes an event hall
The Bicentennial Barn is planned as the visual and functional centerpiece of the park’s long-term design. The current project schedule calls for dismantling, earthwork, utilities, and a new foundation in 2025. Framing and finishes will extend into early 2026. When the work is complete, the barn will look much as it always has. Its historic character will remain intact. But inside, the experience will be entirely different.
The rebuilt structure will be climate-controlled and designed for four-season use as an event and welcome center. Attached to it will be an annex containing restrooms, a catering kitchen, office space, storage, and areas for exhibits and classroom use. The new construction is being designed specifically to complement the original barn rather than compete with it, allowing old and new to sit comfortably together.
This will not be a museum piece roped off from the public. It will be a working building, alive with gatherings, programs, and daily park activity.
A park designed for both quiet and community
The broader plan for McCammon Creek Park reaches well beyond the barn. Over time, the site will include additional loop trails connecting different parts of the park, including areas near Alum Creek. A farm-themed playground, a fishing pond, shelters, restrooms, a canopy walk, and an adventure zone are all part of the phased vision stretching through at least 2028. In other words, the park is being shaped to serve two purposes at once. On one hand, it will remain a place for the kind of quiet experience people already enjoy on the Red Fox Trail. On the other, it will become a destination for events, programs, and family activity anchored by the restored barn.
The barn is the bridge between those two ideas.
Preservation that looks forward
There is something fitting about a Bicentennial Barn becoming the heart of a park designed for future generations. In 2003, the logo painted on its side marked 200 years of Ohio’s past. In 2026, the same structure will be welcoming people into a space built for the next 50 years of community life. Instead of preserving the barn by freezing it in time, Delaware County is preserving it by giving it purpose.
For now, visitors to McCammon Creek Park can walk the trail, watch for wildlife, and pass the work zone where the barn’s pieces are being carefully cataloged and prepared for their next life. It is a rare opportunity to see preservation happening in real time, not as nostalgia but as construction. Soon, that familiar silhouette will rise again on its new foundation.
And when it does, it will no longer be just a landmark along the road. It will be the front door to a park still taking shape around it.
Photo – Bicentennial Barn, Stark County: Creative Commons License
