Est.
1968
Ubly Area Historical Society
The Ubly Area Historical Society operates and maintains the Ten Cent Horse Barn Museum located on Longuski Lane, off M-19 at the south end of the Village of Ubly. The Society’s efforts are all on a volunteer basis and there is no admission for visitors. Tours of the Ten Cent Horse Barn Museum are available Sundays from 1-3:00 p.m. Memorial Day weekend though Labor Day weekend. Donations of artifacts, old photographs, and monetary contributions are greatly appreciated.
Ubly’s ten cent horse barn is believed to have been built in the mid-1890s. Over a century ago, almost every town had such a business. The barn served as a place to leave your team of horses and wagon while shopping and conducting business matters in town. The horses would be fed and watered while you took care of business in town on foot, all for the price of ten cents! In larger towns, wagon repairs were available and, in some cases, horse and buggy rentals were available too – all at extra cost. The old barn was located on the alley one half-block north of Main street off Garfield Street (behind today’s Northstar Bank.)
By the mid to late 1920s, automobiles reduced the need for ten cent barns. Little is known about its use until the 1970s when it was owned by Bruce and Lola Brown as part of their storage rentals. In the mid-1990s they offered the old barn to the newly formed Ubly Area Historical Society as a museum. The group raised funds and moved the barn to its current site in 2003 by first moving it east to the grain elevators, through the fields to the Ubly Dragway, and then west across M-19! Upon completion of the interior, it opened as the Ten Cent Horse Barn Museum in 2004.
