Wilson Barn and Dairy Livonia Township, Wayne County, Michigan
Early settlers in Livonia, Wayne County, Michigan were members of the Jeremiah Klumph family, who came from New York in 1837. Jeremiah's daughter, Louisa, married Phineas P. Wilson and moved to a site which in now Middlebelt Road, between Plymouth Road and Joy Road.
The Wilson Barn was built in 1888 to house the Ira Wilson Dairy. It was destroyed in a fire in 1918 and rebuilt one year later on the original foundation. It is a large barn with clapboard siding, approximately 30-feet by 80-feet. There are three seperate levels with a sloping enterance.
The stalls on the ground level were remodeled in 1945 so that Percheron horses could be stabled here. At attached silo, 15-feet diameter and 45-feet high, is the largest ever to be constructed in Livonia . The Barn is listed as an historic site at both state and national levels.
There is a small house which is on the south end of the site, originally built in 1885. It was restored to the era of the 1940's.

The Wilson family worked hard at the land, clearing marshes and swamps, facing pioneering hardships and overcoming a terrain that would eventually become the nucleus of the largest business of its kind, milk hauling. Ira's first business was the Elm Village General Store. The combination of farming, dairy, small business and milk hauling eventually developed into a full fledged dairy operation.
The Wilson Dairy Company had many dairy stores throughout Michigan.
Ira had married Mary Smith of nearby community of Plymouth Township in the year 1888. Twenty years later he would build for her the family farm mansion. Sadly this house was condemned and destroyed in 1970.
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