A 1915 Purdue University guide to concrete fence posts
Take a drive on most any rural Indiana road or some other Midwest states and it won’t be long until you spot some rather massive concrete pillars apparently serving no purpose. These are in fact old, now abandoned concrete fence posts. Decades and decades ago almost all farmsteads raised livestock, including work horses, thus strong “cattle and horse tight” fencing was an absolute necessity.
Constructing livestock fencing that is functional and remains functional year after year is a skill that farmers and ranchers had. One of the important parts of a good fence is the end post and/or corner posts. These posts anchor the wire fence that stretches along the length of the particular fence line. If the end and corner posts do not hold, the fence wire will sag and livestock will get out, causing quite the kerfuffle.
Remnants of fence wire is still wrapped around this post
This post had white wash and weeds clipped
Old concrete fence posts can be seen alongside many roads in the country. Sometimes you can tell from the locations of these relics coupled with the position of mature trees where once stood an old house and barn yard. Some will be painted, others will be nearly covered with weed and bush growth. They do stand as a reminder of the days when all farm families raised livestock as a part of their livelihood.
This is the link to the 1915 pamphlet pictured above.
Roadtirement 
If the estimated life was 40 years and any of these remaining posts were created at the time the bulletin was published (1915), they are definitely outliving their life expectancy!
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The concrete that the old timers made definitely was of incredible quality! I was surprised at a 40 year estimate of the “expected” life span. Thanks, Suzanne.
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I’ve seen these old pilings in Michigan too, they remind me of posts I’ve seen online in the UK. ❤️
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Don’t know about UK, but they are all over the Midwest, including your home state.
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Relics of a better, vanished time.
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Very true, John
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They last. That’s for sure.
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It is fun seeing them and figuring out where the homesteads and original property and field lines were. So so many fence rows are now gone. And without the fence rows, the population of rabbits and Bobwhite quail is greatly reduced from what it used to be. The 80 acre farms have all gone, nowadays a 3000 acre Indiana row crop farm is considered small.
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So true! I’ve seen them all over Indiana!
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We have these all over the countryside here. There are even some decorative ones.
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We’ve not seen many of the decorative styles around here. Must be a rich area you live in! LOL 😉
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The ones wqe saaw were outside of Peru, Indiana. This is where many of the circus people and animals spent the winter.It might have been part of the grounds where they stayed.
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Sounds logical. Always wondered why the circus folks wintered in Indiana instead of a warmer southern state…
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