Harvesting grain once required long hours of hard manual labor. The grain was first cut with a cradle scythe, then the stalks were gathered by hand and tied into bundles. Groups of 15-20 bundles were stood on end, leaning into each other, and a final bundle was placed over the top to protect them from the weather. The earliest known method of removing grain from the stalk was flailing, in which two large sticks tied together were used to beat the grain from the stalk. By the early 1900s, threshing machines were in use, with grain bundles fed through one end, straw and chaff coming out the other, and grain kernels deposited in a bag. Farmers held thrashing bees that lasted through long, hard, dusty days. Today, multifunctional machinery cuts and thrashes grain while the farmer sits in an air-conditioned combine cab, and new combines can cost $350,000 to $500,000, leading many farmers to hire someone to combine for them. The log building at this site was never a cabin; Franz and Maria Borchardt built it as a granary on their farm in Camden Township about 1887, and it was moved to the fairgrounds in 2007.