Corn Crib

A corn crib, also called a cornhouse or corn house, is a type of granary built to dry and store corn still on the cob, with slatted walls that let air circulate through the corn so it dries after harvest and stays dry afterward. Corn cribs were first built by Native Americans and were quickly adopted by European settlers, though some Indigenous communities later abandoned them in favor of buried food caches after settlers raided the structures for food. Early cribs were wood built, elevated on posts to keep out rodents and had walls that slanted outward, and by the early twentieth century large barns containing many individual corn bins were also called corn cribs, while a modern crib is typically a cylindrical cage of galvanized wire fencing under a metal roof.