Outbuildings are key parts of any farm, providing storage, workspaces, and animal housing. Early pioneers mainly used logs to build farm structures, but later materials, such as stone, timber, brick, and manufactured goods, were also used. Common outbuildings included barns, smokehouses, granaries, corncribs, and chicken houses.

Smokehouses, often near kitchens, preserved food and were built with logs to hold smoke and heat. Storage cellars, dug into hillsides, kept root vegetables cool year-round, with some built over springs to store dairy. Icehouses stored ice from ponds, packed in sawdust, before electric refrigeration.

Corn cribs stored and dried corn, elevated on piers to prevent rodents. Chicken houses, often made of logs, protected chickens from predators, though modern farms use large metal barns with automated systems to house thousands of chickens.