With the advent of timber milling in the area, frame houses became possible. Settlers cooperated in construction, helping one another raise houses and barns. The latter could be 30 feet in length and width with walls perhaps 16 feet high. "It was heavy and dangerous work, and the raising of a large barn required the united energies of a whole community," one settler recalled. Other buildings commonly constructed included stables, corn-cribs, smokehouses, and ash-hoppers. Plank fences began to appear in the 1850s.