Photos: The historic Wineck Barn at the Alaska State Fair

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The Wineck Barn houses displays from the Palmer Historical Society’s Colony House Museum and screens documentaries about the town’s past -- “Alaska Far Away” and “Where the River Matanuska Flows.”

PALMER -- The first building visitors to the Alaska State Fair see when they enter at the Red Gate is also one of the oldest on the fairgrounds. The Wineck Barn was built in 1936. Palmer was just getting started as an experimental agriculture commune set up by the federal government, a way to bring relief to Midwest farmers who'd gone bust in the Great Depression.

"In those days farming (in the Valley) was a cooperative effort by the people," said Earl Wineck, the son of the barn's builder. "We had neighbors who had seven kids and a lot of boys. They helped us and we helped them doing the plowing and planting and getting the grain out."

Read more: 1936 barn is State Fair's 'reunion place' for Alaska old-timers