Door Prairie Barn (LaPorte Nonagon) The historic 1882 Door Prairie Barn is a unique nine-sided structure, the only remaining one of it’s kind in the country left standing. Barn was placed on the National Register of Historical Places by the United States Department of the Interior. It is owned and managed by the Peter Keeling Foundation. Site marker reads: The Door Prairie Barn was built in 1882 for Marion J. Ridgeway. He was a horse (Clydesdale stock from Scotland, English Coach stock, and Norman Draft horses from France) and cattle breeder whose grandfather, James Ridgeway purchased 3,200 acres in this area in 1831. The barn and farm are called Door Prairie, the name given to the rich layer of black loam (earth) in this area. The nine-sided barn was built by John Jeffery of LaPorte, IN. The beams were cut in a saw mill and some have numbers stamped on their ends suggesting a type of prefabrication. Only the sill were hand hewn and they rested on nine nests of round fieldstone, one at each corner. In 2001 the barn was straightened, lifted off the unstable fieldstone and bolted to a new concrete foundation, which incorporated the original stones. This and interior reconstruction was done by Fred Utroske of Union Mills. From LaPorte historical society: The barn was put up by Marion Ridgeway, a Quaker who raised Clydesdale stallions and various other horse breeds; he had a track behind his house where he worked the horses out. Nowadays, the barn is not used but the horse stalls inside still remain. The barn used to sit in obscurity but wound up being showcased next to a major highway when LaPorte grew south and U.S. 35 was extended to the city's new southern boundary several decades ago. The highly visible barn next to the four-lane highway serves as a fitting gateway into the city from the south because of the city's rich agricultural heritage and it's kind of a tourist attraction for some barn enthusiasts. According to Wikipedia, the construction of round barns with as few as six to as many as 16 sides was most popular from about the mid-1800s to the early 1900s. Barns with nine sides were rare, though, because that form of architecture was not advertised in farm magazines during the period. It was said round barns were more complicated to build but had greater floor space and were able to better withstand powerful storms than the four-sided barns that replaced them in popularity in later years. Looks best zoomed full size. Thanks for looking & commenting. Previous Photo: ----------- * RangeRiderRichard's Photo Albums