Behr Barn

Forty vendors under one roof

The Behr Barn stands on Sudderth Drive in Ruidoso, just up from the “Y,” and its trade is all indoors. More than 40 vendors keep stalls inside. The stock runs from new to gently used to antique: vintage memorabilia, ranch oak furniture, quality tools. The barn’s own list of departments adds rocks and minerals; books, movies, and music; jewelry; art and wall decor; and goods for the yard, garden, patio, and deck. Much of it is sorted under plain headings: For the Home, For the Garage, For the Closet.

The place was long known for low-priced used items and collectibles. In recent years the floor has taken on handmade and exclusive stock as well, including soaps, lotions, and cosmetics, original hat and scarf designs, and palm leaf cowboy hats. The barn’s history page places Ruidoso “in the heart of the Capitan Mountain Range” and gives the town’s name for itself, the “Playground of the Southwest.”

That same page still names the keepers as Jr. and Connie Behringer. It says the barn has stood at 310 Sudderth since 2008, and that the Behringers had several locations in the area for more than 30 years before that.

A catfish restaurant and a square-dance caller

Both Behringers came out of Texas. Adolph A. Behringer, Jr., known as Jr., was born June 6, 1932, in Snyder and finished Snyder High School in 1950. Connie Chitwood was born June 15, 1933, in Coryell County, finished Klondike High School in 1951, and went on to business college in Lubbock. They married on April 11, 1953, in Arkansas, after dating three months. Jr. was in the Army, stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. A month after the wedding he left to serve in Germany and France during the Korean War.

According to Connie’s obituary, wherever they lived after that they made friends through church, square dancing, bowling, bridge, buying antiques, rodeos and team roping, fishing, and “generally wheeling & dealing.” They came to Ruidoso in 1975 and opened Fisherman’s Luck Catfish Restaurant. Jr. later became a licensed contractor and worked as a building inspector for the city. Connie ran a series of antique stores and flea markets, the Behr Barn among them.

Jr.’s obituary lists his work as oilfield hand, truck driver, building contractor, building inspector, and business owner, the Behr Barn named in parentheses. He stood 6 feet 5 inches and is remembered there as “larger than life,” ready with a story, poem, or joke for any situation. On the side he rodeoed, team roped, called square dances, and worked as an auctioneer. The couple were long-time members of the J Bar J church on Highway 70 West. His notice calls it a cowboy church and hers calls it a country church.

Connie died on August 23, 2016, after a long illness, 63 years into the marriage. Jr. died on January 15, 2022, at 89. The barn’s history page, under a copyright line that runs to 2026, still asks the passerby to stop in “& See for Yourself What All the BUZZ is About!!!!”