By ANN ALLEN
Indiana Correspondent

AKRON, Ind. — Round barns with their self-supporting conical roofs were not easy to build. It is reported that the Kindig builders (see related article) did not especially care for them, although they built many of the structures within a 30-mile radius of Akron.

The barn currently being moved to Massachusetts will in a way be going home – the first U.S. round barn was built in that state in 1824 by the Shakers. Legend says they liked the barns because evil spirits could not hide in the corners.

The first of Indiana’s round barns was built in 1874, but the structures did not become popular until 1910. Benton Steele, a carpenter, draftsman and architect who lived east of Indianapolis, advertised blueprints and drawing of round barns in The Indiana Farmer from 1902-09.

Steele maintained that the circular form of building “is and always has been and always will be the ultimate in architectural form as well as the strongest shapes ever conceived by man.” He reasoned that “the Creator made and fashioned every known or tangible thing after the circular form and to travel and function in circular or elliptical orbits.”

Unfortunately, few round barn owners agreed. Lacking interior supports, the conical roofs tended to sag. While cows were supposed to feed from center bunks, the animals were not pie-shaped.

Round haymows made for awkward feeding and hay storage. Floyd Cox, who operated the farm Bauters purchased, felt he had to move hay twice as far as he would have in a rectangular barn.