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Property Features
Dougan was a Methodist minister. The carpenter was Mark Keller. The original floor was plank until 1930.
The Dougan Round Barn is architecturally significant as representing a unique form of functional building, the centric barn. Built in 1911 according to the theories of progressive farming advocates, the Dougan barn is a cylindrically shaped building, sixty feet in diameter, with a steep conical gambrel roof and an interior fifty foot tall poured concrete silo with a ten foot frame superstructure built to support the roof. White horizontal lapped siding wraps around the exterior, and the low foundations are of concrete. Many windows indicate the concern for light and ventilation: twenty six-over-six windows on the ground story, nine six-over-six windows on the mow story, and four small windows high in the rafters. Air ducts are placed between the basement windows, wooden shafts on the sides of the silo circulate air to the top of barn, and two ventilators project from the roof. Inside, the ground floor, made of concrete, features twenty metal stanchions, while the upper floor was the mow story, entered form a cemented "barn bridge."
According to the son of the builder, whose juvenile hand-prints were embedded in the concrete floor, the barn was built in 1911 following the concepts of Professor F.H. King of the University of Wisconsin, who espoused compact and economical construction, reduction of labor and operating costs, and adequate light and ventilation. Wesson J. Dougan bought the farm in 1906 and began construction of the round barn in 1911. The barn was utilized for the Dougan Guernsey Farm, which at one time had a herd of 120 cows. The dairy operation lasted until 1968.
The barn was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in June, 1979, as part of the thematic nomination entitled "Centric Barns in Rock County."
The barn was demolished in 2013. The property was removed from the National Register in January, 2014.
A Historic Structure Report of this building can be found in Room 312 at the Wisconsin Historical Society.
National And State Register Of Historic Places Listings
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SW CORNER OF COUNTY HIGHWAY C AND STATE HIGHWAY 23
139060
Located in Wyoming, Iowa County
