The Round Barns of Fulton County

The Round Barns of Fulton County

When a precious family heirloom—a rare 1914 oval barn—began to fall into disrepair in the mid-1990s, the Haimbaugh family had some serious discussions about what to do with the aging structure.

Recognizing the importance of the barn, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the family eventually raised $85,000 to save one of the few oval barns left in Fulton County, Ind., the Round Barn Capital of the World.

“The era of round barns was a time in our agricultural history that was brief, but important,” says Bob Haimbaugh, whose great-grandfather had the barn built two miles north of Rochester, Ind. (pop. 6,414). “It was the birth of modern farming.”

President George Washington owned the nation’s first many-sided or polygonal barn on his farm near Mount Vernon, Va. The 16-sided barn was built in 1792 and used as a treading mill to thresh grain. A Shaker community in Hancock, Mass., built the first true round barn in the nation in 1824.

The popularity of round barns increased around the turn of the 20th century when land grant colleges, including Purdue University, and agricultural magazines began touting them as more economical to build and more efficient to operate than rectangular barns.

With fewer walls, round barns—often measuring more than 70 feet in diameter—could be built with less lumber and their circular design meant livestock faced the center, making chores such as milking cows, feeding livestock, and cleaning up manure more efficient. Ironically, the circular design also made the barns more difficult to expand and less compatible with mechanized farming, eventually leading to their downfall.

Weather, fire, and neglect have taken their toll on these architectural relics and only a few hundred remain standing nationwide, including eight of Fulton County’s original 17.

“Once we started losing so many, I realized we were losing a part of our agricultural history and a part of ourselves,” says Shirley Willard, president emerita of the Fulton County Historical Society. “I knew we had to start preserving them.”

Willard got her chance in 1989 when a tornado blew the roof off the Leedy round barn and owner Larry Paxton donated it to the historical society. The society raised $60,000 to restore the 1924 barn and moved it next to the Historical Society Museum, four miles north of Rochester, where it opened in 1991 as the Round Barn Museum. The museum serves as a replica of a working barn, displaying items such as antique farm machinery and a 1910 buggy.

Shortly after the barn museum opened, the society established the National Round Barn Center of Information, located in the Historical Society Museum, to help collect data and save endangered barns around the world.

Fulton County also celebrates its circular barns each June during its Round Barn Festival. This year’s 34th annual event, featuring a parade, arts & crafts, athletic events, and guided barn tours, is scheduled June 10-12.

Since 1991, four of the county’s barns have been preserved, including the 1915 Utter barn in Henry Township, the Leedy and Haimbaugh barns, and most recently, the 1910 Widemen-Gerig barn, which is being restored as a community building and nature center in Lakeview Park in Rochester.

“When you walk in and see the workmanship, it just takes you back to another time,” says Melinda Clinger, Fulton County Museum director.

To save their barn, the Haimbaugh family sold timber on the farm and made individual donations. With the money raised, the picturesque red barn has been restored to its former glory and is put to good use every July when more than 100 of John Haimbaugh’s descendants gather for a family reunion.

“It’s part of our heritage,” Bob Haimbaugh says. “It shows who we are and where we came from. We’re all very proud of it.”

Lisa Hurt Kozarovich is freelance writer in Kokomo, Ind.

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