Round barns may have developed from the English putting a roof over the horses walking in a circle to provide power to operate mills. They called the building a gin-gan. The earliest recorded many-sided or polygonal barn in the U.S. belonged to our first President. George Washington built a 16 sided barn in 1792 on his Dogue Run farm near Mount Vernon, Va. It was used as a treading mill to thresh grain. This barn decayed and was finally taken down after 1870. A replica of this barn was erected in 1995-96.

The first true round barn in the U.S. was built in Massachusetts in 1824 by the Shakers. It is said that the Shakers preferred round barns so that evil spirits could not hide in the corners. Since the Shakers learned how to make black ash baskets from the Indians, it is possible that their decision to use a circular construction for a barn was also influenced by the Indian's use of the circle for teepees and wigwams. George Winter's sketches of wigwams in Chief Kee-wau-nay's village in 1837 near the present Lake Bruce look like round barns.

Another theory is that the circular construction was derived from the round-houses built to turn the trains around, as the steam locomotive was also invented in the 1820's.

The first of Indiana's round barns was built in 1874. The height of the "round barn building boom" was 1910, when more round barns were built in Indiana than any other year. The last round barn built in Indiana was in 1936.

Land grant colleges including Purdue University advocated round barns as economical in the early 1900's. The University of Illinois published a booklet, The Economy of the Round Barn, in 1910. But they advised putting a silo in the middle to help support the roof. Fulton County's round barns do not have silos, but have unsupported roofs.

Round barns are more economical in several ways. The capacity of a circle is larger than that of a rectangle with the same amount of siding. Having the livestock all face the center saved the farmer steps when feeding. It was faster, easier and cheaper to build a round barn than a post-and-beam barn because the round barn uses lumber that is one-inch thick instead of foot-thick beams, and used nails instead of pegs.

Round barns are now an "endangered species." Several are disappearing every year. They cost too much to repair, and farmers cannot afford to pay taxes on them for storage because the big modern farm tractors and machinery won't fit through the doors. The neglected barns are succumbing to wind, weather and fire and are being torn down.

The Fulton County Historical Society has established a National Round Barn Center of Information to collect information on round barns and help find ways to save them. Whenever a round barn is threatened, please notify FCHS, and we will try to find someone who will take it and save it. If you want a free round barn, ask us. Of course, the catch is that you have to move it and restore it, which may cost $65,000. That is what FCHS paid to move and restore the beautiful Fulton County Round Barn Museum in 1989-1991. The Kelley Agricultural History Museum at Tipton paid $80,000 to move and restore their round barn in 1997-99.

Many barns are red but a large number of barns were always painted white.

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