Article from the Saint Paul Pioneer Planet: Published: Sunday, September 2, 2001. [Thanks to Bob n Kathy Frydenlund: The newspaper article as it appeared in the Sunday St. Paul Pioneer, “Wisconsin” section. The website for the paper is www.pioneerplanet.com and look under columnists, Don Boxmeyer.]

Kathy and Bob Frydenlund of New Richmond, Wis., now use their 1914 round barn to house their growing pack of llamas. They moved from St. Paul to the farm in Wisconsin several years ago mainly because they fell in love with the old round barn. The cathedral-like domed ceiling of the barn is supported in the center by the concrete silo, and the delicate web of rafters and double rafters was built by early 20th century craftsmen.

DON BOXMEYER Pioneer Press Columnist Farmyard cathedrals

I found myself in the company of two rural gentlemen in a little saloon in Vernon County in the hills of Wisconsin recently. They were silently chewing away at their Leinenkugel’s until I spoke up. “Barns,” I said. “Anyone know where there are any round barns around here?” The bearded fellow on my left lit up like a holiday tree. He was the mayor of nearby Mount Tabor, and he personally knows where 17 round barns are. The younger guy on my right said he has a round barn, but it needs some work. Some serious roofing work. “I can’t even get the Amish to go up there, though. That’s a long way up.” This is Amish country down here in the slopes, gullies and ridges of Wisconsin to the east of La Crosse. You’ll find Yuba down here, and that’s the smallest town in Wisconsin. You’ll find Avalanche down here on the banks of the Kickapoo River, and it was so named because of an avalanche that buried the town creamery and one cat. And the Amish still get together down here, hundreds strong, to build huge rectangular timber-frame barns. The lush Wisconsin farmland is studded with huge, sturdy Amish barns and, if you look closely, the round barns here and there, even though no one builds them anymore. Wisconsin could be the round-barn capital of the world. Hundreds of them were built here between 1910 and 1930 because they made eminent sense for the small dairy farmer. No flat walls to catch the wind, but then again there weren’t any lee spots on the outside for the livestock to gather out of the wind, either. Round barns in the New England states remind many there of the beloved covered bridges, and even though the barns are headed for oblivion, they remind people of a special time in America when the structures accommodated a special need. And now, Bob and Kathy Frydenlund of New Richmond, Wis., have compiled a 66-page book, “How to Build & Love Your Own Round Barn.” The Frydenlunds are former St. Paul residents who found the 40-acre farm 22 miles from Hudson several years ago, and it was the round barn on the property that convinced them they’d found their new home. “We absolutely fell in love with this place,” says Bob, who grew up on a farm in North Dakota. “One of the first things we had to do was shovel 20 tons of pig manure out of the barn.” The lower level of the barn eventually became home to Kathy and Bob’s growing herd of llamas, and they have plans to eventually reroof the barn, which can be extremely expensive. Proceeds from the sale of their book will help with that, and they have gathered historical data, particularly from the University of Illinois, which illustrates what shrewd thinking went into the development of the circular barn. First of all, the round barn required the minimum number of steps for the farmer to perform his daily tasks. Instead of walking down long rows of animals, he moved from one to the next around in a tight circle. Then there was the feed itself, which filled a central silo. It required less movement to get to each animal, and because it was in the center of the barn, it did not freeze as easily as the feed in an outside silo in winter. There were other documented advantages of the round barn, among them greater lineal strength of lumber used in circular construction. In fact, many of the framing members of round barns that are almost 100 years old do not show the fatigue and sag common in rectangular barn construction. There is a definite cathedral-like majesty to the upward, symmetrical sweep of the roof rafters in a circular barn. Promoters of the round barn also said they were cheaper to build than rectangular barns because of the need for less wood. Construction tables in the Frydenlund book from 1915 reveal that a round barn 60 feet in diameter could be built for as little as $1,113, whereas a rectangular barn of the same cubic footage would cost as much as $1,699. Interestingly enough, Bob Frydenlund’s research revealed that many round-barn builders in western Wisconsin were Norwegian and Swedish because as boat builders, they had mastered the art of round construction. There was a notable exception, however, in Vernon County, where Alga Shivers, an African-American carpenter, was born lived his entire life. He was the master round barn builder of the area, supervising construction of at least 15 barns in and around Mount Tabor, Ontario and Trippville, Wis. “As an indication of how efficient the carpenters were,” says Bob Frydenlund, “two roofers would work for three days and never see each other because their movement around the roof was so much in rhythm.” There were, however, distinct disadvantages to the round barn. They were limited to a certain size, and if the farmer wanted to increase his herd, modifications were difficult to make. And the barns did not do a good job of furnishing protection from the wind to outside animals. Round barns were finally done in, not only by the Depression of 1929 but also by the ultimate invention and popularity of the motorized tractor. The round barn was a horse-and-buggy building, and the new Fords, John Deeres and Massy Fergusons were rectangularly performing vehicles. Mark and Jackie Tyler have a round barn on their farm near Baldwin, Wis., a barn that was one of very few that survived a killer tornado in the 1950s. While it is extremely costly, they are having their barn reroofed in cedar shakes so that the roof might last another 40 to 50 years. “It is well worth it,” says Mark, formerly of Minneapolis. “Jackie keeps her Shetland ponies in the barn, and we can remodel it as we go.” Mark’s roofer, Wilson, Wis., woodworker Eric North, says: “The roof is not overbuilt and it is somewhat springy. But there is inherent strength in the circular design. This is a remarkably durable building.” LaVern Rippley, a professor and chairman of the German department at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., is an expert in round barns. He applauds the Frydenlunds and Tylers for the efforts to save their barns, which he calls “cathedrals.” “But in the long range, I know it is hopeless and unrealistic that many of them will be saved. They are so dramatically taxed that no one living on a farm income can maintain them. That is very sad, very sad. These are truly American inventions, but they are disappearing everywhere.”

Columnist Don Boxmeyer can be reached at dboxmeyer@pioneerpress.com or (651) 228-5568.