The William W. Schomaker Museum is set up in a barn with its own history. William Holland was a wealthy man married to a German farm girl. She was homesick for farm life, so Mr. Holland had this barn built for her, in 1908. Mrs. Holland kept cows in this barn in stalls at the back of the main room. The hayloft was upstairs with an upper door and a hayfork track that are still there. The loft was also used for dances, parties and roller-skating.
Then the Mihalic family owned this farm, and ran an antique store in the bam. Their sons had a basketball hoop upstairs. They raised the flood-prone property with truck-loads of old pavement, and repaired the barn's foundation.
Bridgeport Charter Township bought the property in the 1980s. The Mihalic House was used by the Bridgeport Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary, and the barn was "Der Spookin' Barn" at Halloween. Wally Schomaker asked the Township to lease the Holland Barn to the Historical Society of Bridgeport. The Mihalic house was moved to King Road, and the Historical Society opened the Red Barn Museum in 1990. It was renamed in honor of William Wallace Schomaker in 1995.
