One mile east of the central Iowa community of Grand Junction (and .5 miles north on route P46) is one of the most well known true-round barns in Iowa. As Lowell J. Soike has pointed out, the barn—constructed by Beecher Lamb in 1911 for Henry A. and Martha Frantz—was based on a plan prepared and circulated by the Illinois Experimental Station (in its Bulletin). 5W. E. Frudden, in his 1916 publication Farm Buildings, How to Build Them, illustrated the barn along with its plan and included a discussion of it (p. 15). The Frantz barn has walls of concrete block and is covered by a double-pitched gambrel roof. It is 55 feet in diameter. Within it is a central silo measuring 16 feet in diameter and 60 feet high. A raised basement was provided, and a ramp originally led to the large doors on the main level. At the peak of the building was a louvered round cupola (now gone) and a small gabled dormer (still in place). The Frantz barn sits within a farm complex, and from a distance it arises majestically from the surrounding flat fields.
Notes
Soike, Round Barns, 80.
Writing Credits
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.