Round barns of America

JP1

Member
Livestock Farmer
Started following a group on Facebook

Here’s one post

Here's another round barn designed by architect Benton Steele that is rare in design. The stunning Drennen-Stump round barn, located just outside of Blue Rapids, Kansas, was inspired by and built a few years after the 1906-08 Cottrell round barn, which was the largest round barn in Kansas. The Cottrell barn was a mammoth 100-foot-diameter and 90-foot-tall structure that could hold 300 Hereford cattle and 500 tons of hay. Up until 1997, the two round barns stood only three miles apart. The Drennens, relatives to the Cottrells by marriage and fellow Hereford breeders, had this round barn built in 1911. It has been in the Stump family since 1961. It was a very rare treat to see a round barn not only still in use, but being used for its original purpose.

Famous round barn builder, architect and promoter Benton Steele is widely known for his work on scores of round barns in Indiana. Steele left Indiana for Kansas in 1909. The Drennen-Stump round barn was designed by Steele and built in 1911. It measures 92 feet in diameter and stands 40 feet tall. It can feed 100 Herefords at a time around the perimeter. In interior photos, notice that a number of swinging gates make for a versatile work space. On this day in April, 2018 two gates made a pen for a precious and curious Hereford calf that was only two weeks old at the time.

This immaculate working round barn is owned today by Dave Stump and his family, who together run a successful Hereford breeding operation, Springhill Herefords, out of the round barn. Dave's father, Harold, started the business in 1937. Harold Stump would be proud of his family today. The champion Hereford steer at the 2019 Kansas State Fair was sired and sold from this ranch in 2015.

Be sure to look closely at the old photo of the barn being constructed. Those builders would no doubt be proud of the Stump family for taking such good care of what they worked so hard to build. That old photo, with the carpenters looking into the camera's lens, reminds me of a thought-provoking segment of an interview in a documentary film called "The Barn Raisers." The gentleman being interviewed in the film was a barn owner and he said, "I collect old photographs and I had an epiphany at some point. It gave chills; it gives me chills now. My thoughts were that I was looking into the past. And it wasn't so much as I was looking into the past as much as they were looking into the future. They were looking at me, asking me, 'What are you going to do with this in the future?'"

Enjoy the Stump round barn!

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Oldmacdonald

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Scotland
I remember reading about one particular round barn.

Housed hundreds of cattle on the lower floor, feed store on first fllor, and admin on top floor.

THink it was a large scale pastoral company. Burnt down now perhaps
 

Bongodog

Member
Visited a round barn at the shaker village in Massacucetts, magnificent piece of work, ideal for a cold winter climate, hay drops down to cows, milk goes sideways to dairy, muck drops down to basement level.
 

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