Tuesday, August 14, 2007

OCTAGON BARNS

Other than simply because you might like the uniqueness of the shape, why would you build an octagon barn? It seems that there was a time, around the 1920s, when the agricultural community promoted octagon barns as the buildings of the future. It was felt that the shape would be better to work out of and that it would replace three or four buildings on the farm.

Sears Roebuck & Company even sold different size octagon barn package kits in their mail order catalog. You ordered the barn you wanted, they loaded the materials on a flat car in Chicago and shipped it to you.

We’re still waiting for the octagon to become the agriculture building of the future but it’s not likely it ever will because in actual use it did not prove to be handy to work in and probably more importantly it cost more to build.

This barn is located on Gettysburg-Pittsburg Road in Darke County, Ohio.

Another can be found on Neff Road also in Darke County.

A red one just north of Bradford, Ohio.

One of the nicest octagon barns in the area is located between Troy and Piqua, Ohio.

Less common than barns are octagon houses. This one is found along route 571 between Greenville and Union City, Ohio. It is believed to have originally been a cigar manufacturing facility. Apparently octagons didn’t prove to be the cigar factories of the future either. RMB


2 comments:

GibsonGirl said...

Great octagon house. I like how the porch mirrors the shape of the home.

Its one of my favorites and Ive visited many.

Even wrote a book on octagon houses.

Ellen
http://berniepuer.ipower.com/octagonbook/index.html

Unknown said...

I grew up in the home on Gettysburg-Pitsburg Rd just across from the Missionary Church with the Octagon Barn. It was a favorite memory of mine. When it wasn't used we played basketball in the hay loft on the second floor. With 40' plus of ceiling you could loft the ball pretty high. There was an old horse drawn wagon and sleigh under the banked basement area with a small stall for hogs (small exit doors) and a corn crib style pen for bottle fed caves we raised. Being a banked barn it was just an amazing place to play as a child. We had a rope hung from the copula reinforcements and would swing each other around before dismounting into hey bales. Man do I wish I could go back to those days.