John Haimbaugh Round Barn, Rochester Indiana

Date added: April 15, 2023 Categories: Indiana Barn Round Barn
View from northeast (1991)

The John Hamibaugh Round Barn, located in Newcastle Township, Fulton County, Indiana, was built by locally prominent carpenters C.V. Kindig & Sons and features an unusual semi-circular attached shed section. The barn is an important and direct link to the agricultural development that occurred in Indiana from 1850 to 1936 (and beyond) and has changed very little since its construction in 1914. After 1936, round and polygonal barns were considered obsolete and the last round structure was built in the state to replace a 1915 round barn that had burned (Grant County, Richland Township, extant).

The original owner of the barn was John Haimbaugh who commissioned prominent Fulton County builders C.V. Kindig & Sons to erect the barn. The Haimbaugh family was well established in the county. John Haimbaugh operated a dairy for which the barn seemed ideal. Timber was harvested from the farm and processed at the nearby Talma sawmill. Gravel for the concrete was mined from a nearby creek. After completion, there were 38 milking stations around the lower level and numerous windows providing ample light to the interior. According to family records, the Haimbaugh boys milked the cows in the morning, evening, and at week's end, each boy received one cent for each cow milked. The boys also cleaned the barn every Sunday before church.

The Haimbaugh family has always maintained ownership of the barn; the Haimbaugh Family Trust being the owner today. The trust was established for the ongoing maintenance of the barn. Although no longer used as a barn, it remains a well-preserved structure.

The Haimbaugh barn is quite unusual and unique among Indiana examples. Being one of the 77 remaining true circular barns of the 151 that were built (219 round and polygonal barns were built in Indiana), the barn is even more distinct due to the twenty-foot-deep shed that wraps halfway around the barn on the west side. Only one other Indiana example has this type of shed that was integral to the original design, the Dr. Horace Jones barn of Madison County's Boone Township (extant). Furthermore, the decorative qualities of the barn and the attention to detail distinguish it from other examples, from its white trim to the diamond-trimmed openings to the quarry-faced concrete block base.

Barn Description

Located near Rochester in rural Fulton County, Indiana, the John Haimbaugh Round Barn is an unusual and picturesque circular farm structure. Brothers Vernon, Oral, and Hap Kindig built the barn in 1914 for Mr. Haimbaugh. It stands on the west side of Indiana 25 at the end of a long gravel drive that passes the original frame farmhouse (now abandoned) and a modern trailer house. The site and barn are surrounded by mature trees on all sides and cultivated fields on the north and west.

The seventy-two-foot diameter circle is two stories in height and is surrounded on half of its circumference (northwest side) by a twenty-foot wide semi-circular one-story shed. The roof is a three-pitch gambrel with a large shed dormer on the northeast and a metal aerator in lieu of a cupola. The shed, beginning on the northwest side of the main doors on the northeast, proceeds around the back half of the barn to the other main doors on the southwest and is covered by a gently sloping roof. The balloon framing of the walls rest on tall (about four feet tall) concrete block walls which in turn rest on poured concrete foundations. Gravel from the farm was used in making the poured concrete. Legend has it that Mr. Haimbaugh insisted on filling the block walls with poured concrete as well, in order to insure stability. The block walls still show no signs of failure.

The main facade on the northeast is defined by the large sliding doors mounted on overhead tracks. These doors are composed of vertical planks with an applied diamond panel for decoration. Further, the door on the northwest side has a smaller human-sized door that allow access to the interior without opening the large main doors. Centered above on the roof is the dormer with vertical siding on the walls, a single four light window on the north face and a gently sloping pitched roof with exposed rafters. Continuing around the barn and shed in a clockwise manner, there is a series of ten, four light windows before the smaller door on the southeast side and then another ten, four light windows before the other set of main doors on the southwest, identical to those on the northeast. There are no upper level windows on this side of the barn. Next, the shed juts out into the landscape with two, four light windows and a single, upper level four light window centered between these two. The shed is then composed of a series of ten equally spaced four light windows that march around the southwest side, followed by a door and another set of ten, equally spaced four light windows. Finally, the shed returns to the main barn walls by the doors on the northeast with an arrangement identical to that on the southwest side, except that there are three lower level windows instead of two.

The interior of the barn is a composition of efficiently arranged spaces that facilitated an early twentieth-century dairy operation. There is a central drive that runs from the main doors on the northeast and southwest, with the drive delineated by a series of large posts. These posts in turn support huge beams that offer bracing for the radiating floor joists of the upper level. On either side of the main drive are feed alleys that are created by the central posts and a concrete feed trough that forms a circle some forty feet in diameter. On the east side, this concrete trough is followed by a ring of support posts that brace a laminated beam above which helps to carry the weight of the floor joists. Stantions for the milk herd are fitted between the posts, followed by a manure alley along the outer perimeter. The west side has a similar arrangement but there is a corn crib built into the middle of the feed alley. Finally, along the outer reaches of the west side, there are openings into the attached shed where pens could accommodate the storage of animals.

The upper level, reached by a moveable ladder, is an elaborate engineering feat that is composed of a series of laminated beams and support posts that brace the three roof sections and the dormer. There is an upper laminated beam at the base of the metal aerator section that is braced by a series of cross-timbers that form a web of support. Out from this is another laminated beam that marks the juncture of the upper and second roof pitch and this beam is braced by four support posts spaced equally around the circle. These posts extend from the upper reaches of the barn, through the floor level and finally are braced on the lower level by posts located along the sides of the central drive. At the intersection of the second and final roof pitches and the top of the dormer unit is the last laminated beam that, like its predecessor, is support by a series of posts, this time numbering ten. These posts also extend through the floor level and are in turn offered lower-level support by the ring of posts at the outer reaches of the feed trough. A circular hay track is mounted just inside of this beam and it curves gracefully into the dormer thus allowing for efficient handling of hay and straw inside of the main doors. The roof trusses are then composed of balloon frame stick lumber pieces that radiate upwards toward the barn's center. The floor area of the upper level is open, with the exception of the area just inside of the northeast doors which is left open to accommodate loading and unloading of upper level feed.

John Haimbaugh Round Barn, Rochester Indiana View from northeast (1991)
View from northeast (1991)

John Haimbaugh Round Barn, Rochester Indiana View from north (1991)
View from north (1991)

John Haimbaugh Round Barn, Rochester Indiana View from north (1991)
View from north (1991)

John Haimbaugh Round Barn, Rochester Indiana View from southeast (1991)
View from southeast (1991)

John Haimbaugh Round Barn, Rochester Indiana View from northwest (1991)
View from northwest (1991)

John Haimbaugh Round Barn, Rochester Indiana View from northeast (1991)
View from northeast (1991)

John Haimbaugh Round Barn, Rochester Indiana View from northeast (1991)
View from northeast (1991)