YPSILANTI (AP) - From a distance, you can tell that the Peckham barn is different.

It's a big one, all right - 44 feet at the peak. And there's that distinctive "L" shape.

But what you won't know - unless you're World War II vintage or stop to talk to LaRell and Stacy Peckham - is that this once was known far and wide as "Peckham's Big Barn" - where dairying and dancing went together. It's a story that isn't likely to be repeated in today's modern dairies.

The Peckhams are working to preserve a piece of the region's colorful history.

There have been Peckhams in Stutsman County since 1914.

LaRell's grandfather, Arthur LeRoy "Roy" Peckham, moved to North Dakota from the state of Michigan. Arthur married Mable Trowbridge of Montpelier in 1916 and moved to the current farm in 1926.

The Peckhams had four daughters and two sons. There were older girls, but the eldest son was LaRell's dad, Dale Peckham, born in 1921.

In 1938, Arthur decided he needed a bigger barn.

"Grandpa had to borrow money, but nobody in the area - 'Ypsi' - would lend him the money," LaRell said. "So he went to Jamestown."

The new barn cost $4,600. It was finished in fall 1939. It was a stanchion barn in two alleyways and up to date for its day, with a concrete gutter for manure. The main west part measures 40 by 80 feet. An east extension is 40 by 40. The roof rafters were curved, made from hand-sawn 1-by-12s - each rafter from five boards, staggered so the splices weren't in the same place. Jules Naze, of Montpelier, was the head carpenter.

"It was Grandpa's own design," LaRell said of the barn. "The neighbors said he should have a barn dance to celebrate, so Grandpa did. That's how it got started."

He expanded the dance schedule in the next year.

In 1940, Arthur Peckham started advertising weekly dances in the barn. The dairy cows would be out of the barn during the days that time of the year.

Soon, Arthur tried to heat the barn to make the fall dances more comfortable. He bought a wood furnace at the Montpelier lumberyard. He built a floor vent that would take heat up through a floor grate in the east loft. Fred Jorgenson, of Ypsilanti, built a 50-foot-tall brick chimney. People marveled about how he got it so straight.

Also in the early years, he built an 8-foot-tall "stag" for the dance bands - 10 feet wide and 24 feet long. He bought a used Hamilton piano that remains there, though it is out of tune.

The dance floor below the stage was 40 feet wide and 70 feet long, with benches around the perimeter. For the dances, the Peckhams sprinkled the floor with "spangles," like wax shavings, to make the feet glide easier.

Dale married Lillian Erickson, of Ypsilanti, in 1944 and had a wedding dance in the barn. Lillian helped sell tickets and helped Grandma make hamburgers on an oil stove.

Dances ran from the end of May to about mid-October. Most of the bands were local, but Arthur contracted with a booking agent who sometimes brought in big-name bands from Kansas and Denver.

People came every Tuesday and holidays. Dancing ran from about 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. The place was filled, mostly with people in their 20s and 30s.

"They liked waltzes, polkas and straight two-steps," Lillian recalled. "They didn't have square dancing."

The Peckhams had a license to sell cigarettes and candy bars, but not liquor. Dancers could either drink soda pop, or buy a bottle of liquor elsewhere and mix it with their Coke or 7-Up at the dance.

The sheriff or a sheriff's deputy would attend each dance. Party-goers weren't allowed to drink in the barn itself. Things didn't get out of hand, but there was an occasional incident.

LaRell said one story was that Ralph "Riley" Baenen, of Montpelier, somehow forgot the barn was on the second floor and "walked out" of the loft doorways on the side, falling to the ground.

"The guys looked down and said, 'Riley, are you OK?' He just said, 'Watch out boys, that first step is a --," LaRell said. Baenen was not seriously hurt.

Dances drew 50 people some nights and 400 others times. Women paid 25 cents to get in. Men paid 50 cents.

Lillian said the most memorable dance for her was in 1945, when World War II ended in Germany.

"We had quite a crowd that night - quite a celebration," she recalled. "I think we had nearly 1,500 people out there."

After the dances, Arthur stayed out through much of the night, walking around the barn, making sure no one had thrown a lit cigarette that might burn the barn down. He also was patrolling for bottles.

As one story goes, Grandpa Arthur picked up partially emptied bottles after the dance and poured the remains into another bottle to sell the mixture at the next dance.

The dances would continue for 10 years, through 1949, after World War II.

"The dances paid off the cow barn," LaRell said. "They quit having them in 1949. Night clubs were starting to come in in Jamestown. Other people were starting barn dances, too."

LaRell was born in 1961. His older sisters had two class dances in the barn in the late 1960s, but the dance floor was largely idle until the late 1990s.

The barn was the site for a big party on Dale's and Lillian's 50th anniversary in 1994. There was a two-piece accordion band for that one.

In 1996, LaRell married Stacy, a Zap native, who was working at Southwood Veterinary Clinic in Jamestown.

"That was the last party," LaRell recalled. "The wedding was in the church in town, and the reception and dance was out here. We had 375 people."

Dale retired in 1998.

LaRell has about 78 beef cows and concentrates on his wheat, sunflower and oat crops. The chicken coop is used for storage. The big barn is used for the horses and for calving in the spring.

Son Will, 5, and daughter Leah, 2, have a swing and some other play things in the loft.

LaRell would like to keep the barn intact, but that takes money.

The Peckhams' barn was recognized by the BARN AGAIN! project in 1992. BARN AGAIN! is sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Successful Farming magazine.

LaRell said that every summer, at least two or three parties of motorists will stop by the farm - usually people from within 100 miles.

"They'll just say they wanted to look at it because they had such good memories there," LaRell said. Some will say they met their spouses there.

The Peckhams are looking to get the barn on the National Register of Historic Places registered with the North Dakota Historical Society. Among other things, they'd like financial help for shingling the roof and protecting what's inside.

LaRell and Stacy don't plan to have dances in the barn on any kind of regular basis anymore, but LaRell thinks about it.

"We might have one more fling - one more dance in it - some year," he said.