8-sided barn fills Iowa skyline
IT was a dusty road, the kind you don’t find much these days. The dust was so thick that I could barely see the milkweed pods that were about ready to pop along the roadside. I knew that Secrest Barn, maybe one of the biggest round barns in the United States, was somewhere out here near Downey, Iowa.
Oct. 5 will be the barn’s 125th birthday. It was a duty to pay homage to this place, about 50 miles west of the Quad-Cities. To find it we droned through sleepy little Downey, which is on county road X30, just south of Interstate 80 at West Branch.
Suddenly, on dusty Adams Road, the bell-shaped tower of the red Secrest Barn climbed high over the tallest trees. You may never see anything like this barn, so big that it once held 200 tons of loose hay in the upper level. That was breakfast for the 32 horses and 16 cows waiting on the lower level.
Guy Secrest, who owned the farm and 520 acres around it, would be both pleased and amused to see that his round barn is still an attraction that can be rented for a party or dance.
On a sunny afternoon, we drove off the road and into the Secrest Barn’s farmyard.
“Hal-o-o-o-o,” I called to the farmhouse, about a half-block from the barn. No one was around, so we slowly drove through the soft, tall grass.
A door to the barn was open. There was a deep, musty scent of old wood, and the odor of 100-year-old manure that is steeped into the beams.
It was dizzying to look up, up, up at the octagonal ceiling, 75 feet in the air. No wonder that barn aficionados claim it is the most brilliantly constructed round barn in the country.
Round barns were popular during the golden age of farming, about 1910 to 1920 when the U.S. produced 80 percent of the world’s total supply of corn. Round barns were wind resistant and had greater hay storage than conventional barns. About 100 round barns are left in Iowa, and the Secrest Barn is the “country castle” of them all.
We poked around, alone in this cathedral of wood, mystified by the farm tools that must have been there, untouched, for a century. The Secrest Barn is open at all times. There is never a charge, but a little box welcomes donations to help the ongoing restoration.
This is absolutely the most friendly barn in America. There is a first aid kit, should you splinter a finger on the old wood, and couches to rest on. It even has restrooms with shiny mirrors. Restroom doors look to lead to outhouses, but inside are contemporary pedestal sinks. A country touch: Hanging on the walls inside the partitioned toilets are thick Sears, Roebuck catalogs.
Barn lovers are a persistent bunch, and the current owner of the place, Dr. Rich Tyler, a University of Iowa professor, is tediously restoring the barn. Once a month, barn lovers flock to the big round barn to help with the restoration.
“Tell everyone to come out on Oct. 5 for the big anniversary,” Tyler reminds. “There will be country music, speakers, slide shows, lots of good old times.
“Horses will pull hay into the barn once again. It will be a suitable anniversary — and, as usual, no charge.”
Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com. Comment on this column at qctimes.com.