Gagetown – Michigan’s Thumb Octagon Barn, photo by coloneljohnbritt

John writes that this enormous, eight-sided barn in Gagetown is an agricultural museum open to the public during the warmer months.

Check out thumboctagonbarn.org for details including the answer to a question: Why an octagon barn?

Besides the fact that Mr. Purdy (the owner of the barn) was taken up by the uniqueness of this shape of barn, it was during this period that the agricultural community was promoting an octagon or round barn as the building of the future for agriculture. It was felt that this shape of building would be handier to work out of and that it would replace three or four buildings on the farm, i.e. hog house, horse barn, grainery, etc.).

At this same time Sears Roebuck & Co. listed a number of different sized octagon barn packages in their catalogue. You could order a barn “kit” and it was loaded on a flat car in Chicago and shipped all over the country.

It is obvious that if an octagon barn was the building of the future for agriculture there would have been more of them dotting our landscape. In talking to men who worked on the Purdy Farm as boys, they said that it was not as handy to work in and it was a more costly building to build.

Their photos page has some neat images including a photo of the Purdy Farm and barn from 1924.