Round barn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A round barn is an historic barn design. Numerous round barns in the United States are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Though round barns were not as popular as some other barn designs, their unique shape makes them noticeable. The years from 1880–1920 represent the height of round barn construction.[1] Round barn construction in the United States can be divided into two distinct eras. The first, the octagonal era, spanned from 1850–1900. The second era, known as the true circular era, spanned from 1889–1936. The overlap meant that round barns of both types, polygonal and circular, were built during the period that round barns were popular in the United States.[2]
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[edit] History
[edit] Early history
Round barns date to the late 18th and early 19th century. George Washington owned a sixteen-sided threshing barn that he designed himself in 1793. Built at his Dogue Run Farm in Fairfax County, Virginia[3] it is regarded as the first American round barn.
Early round barns were particularly associated with the Shaker community,[4][1] one was constructed in 1826 at just such a community in Hancock, Massachusetts.[1] Outside of Hancock and Mount Vernon, a few scattered round barns appeared on the American landscape before the Civil War.[3]
[edit] The round barn era
Despite considerable publicity of the 1826 round barn in Massachusetts, the design was not popularized until the 1880s. During this time period agricultural colleges began to push the design as they taught progressive farming methods, based on the principles of industrial efficiency. It was from 1880–1920 that round barns began to pop up all over the United States, becoming most popular in the Midwest.[1]
The rise in popularity and the promotion of round barns occurred surrounding the new focus on efficiency. The circular shape has a greater volume-to-surface ratio than a square shaped barn. Regardless of size, this made round barns cheaper to construct than similar sized square or rectangular barns because they required less materials. The structural stability is also enhanced over that of a typical quadrilaterally shaped barn. Simplified construction lacking elaborate truss systems for the arched roof was also seen as advantage. In the Midwest, particularly, the buildings were thought more resilient against prairie thunderstorms.[4] The interior layout of round barns was, at the time, promoted as more efficient, since farmers could work in a continuous direction.[1]
Claims of round barn efficiency were overstated. The round barn never caught on as a standard barn, as some of those pushing the progressive, efficiency-based agricultural methods had hoped. Regardless, numerous round barns were constructed during the period of popularity the design enjoyed and a large number still stand today.[1]
[edit] Design
Designed in a distinctive circular shape, these barns were meant to take advantage of gravity to move hay from the loft to the cow stable below. In many cases, a silo was constructed to rise up through the round barn's center. A labor saving design, the round barn was promoted, for a time, by agricultural colleges as a progressive way to house dairy cattle.[5]
The earliest of the round barns tend to have multiple sides, twelve or sixteen. They also tend to be wood sided while the later round barns are more often brick or glazed tile sided. The interior design of round barns shifted as well. The early round barns had cattle stanchions on the first floor with the whole of the loft used for hay and feed storage. As design progressed later barns possessed a central space which rose up from the ground level through the entire building. The cattle stanchions in this variation of round barn were arranged around a circular manger on the lower level. Above the stanchion level a circular wagon drive allowed hay to be loaded and unloaded into the central mow as the wagon circled the perimeter. The final stage of interior design in round barns included a silo through the center of the structures. These were not really added until silos became fixtures of American farms. Sometimes the central silo would project up through the roof.[1]
[edit] Influences
It is known that prominent agricultural colleges began to promote the design techinique as round barns came to prominence. However, the provider of the intital impetus is the subject of some debate. In 1848 Orson Fowler published A Home For All: Of the Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building, extoling the virtues of the octagonal shape in home construction. The book included a discussion on use of the shape in barns and other outbuildings. The book lit off a flurry of octagonal home construction, especially in the New England and Middle Atlantic states. Some researchers have linked the earliest round barn constructions with Fowler's popular book because so many of the early round barns assumed the octagonal shape.[3]
Other historians discount Fowler's influence on the beginning of the round barn era in the United States. Lowell J. Soike asserts that Fowler did not have any direct connection with any octagonal round barns. He also pointed out that the octagon had ceased to be the basis for building constructions by the Civil War.[3] In Indiana, for example, 219 round barns were constructed between 1850 and 1936, of those 67 were polygonal, including 17 eight sided barns built after 1900.[2]
[edit] Eras
[edit] Octagonal
The "Octagonal Era" of round barn design stretched from about 1850 until 1900. Round barns, such as Washington's, were often multi sided in their earliest incarnations. Multi-sided round barns came in a variety of polygonal shapes, including six, eight, nine, ten, twelve, fourteen and sixteen sided. Polygonal barns constructed before the advent of balloon framing tended to have interior spaces that were more rectangular than circular.[2]
[edit] True circular
The "True Circular Era" of round barn construction spanned from 1889–1936, overlapping the octagonal era and finally dwindling out as round barns fell out of popularity. True circular round barns began to rise as improvements in construction techniques made their design more practical. As balloon framing, circular silos and truly self-supporting roofs were developed circular barns superseded polygonal structures and began to be built more and more. Despite the gains in popularity for circular barns, polygonal barns continued to be built up through the height of the True Circular Era.[2]
[edit] Trivia
The world's largest round barn is located at the Fairgrounds in Marshfield, Wisconsin.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g Auer, Michael J. The Presevation of Historic Barns, Preservation Briefs, National Park Service, first published October 1989. Retrieved 7 February 2007.
- ^ a b c d Round and Polygonal Barns of Indiana, (PDF), National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form, NRIS Database, National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 8 February 2007.
- ^ a b c d North Dakota Round Barns (PDF), National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form, NRIS Database, National Register of Historic Places. Retrieved 8 February 2007
- ^ a b Round Barns, University of Illinois Campus Tours, University of Illinois. Retrieved 7 February 2007.
- ^ Historic Barn Types, Taking Care of Your Old Barn, University of Vermont, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation. Retrieved 7 February 2007.
[edit] External links
- Efficiency of the Round barn: Kansas State Board of Agriculture, Eighteenth Biennial Report, 1911–12, pp. 139–42.
- Shaker Round Barn: Official site
- Sleuthing for Clues: article covering reconstruction effort of Washington's round barn. Mount Vernon Estate and Gardens. [1]
