" THE WORLD’S LARGEST ROUND BARN”
The impressive focal point of the Marshfield, Wisconsin Fairgrounds is the round barn built in 1916 to house purebred animals in 250 stanchions. The barn is 150 feet in diameter and 70 feet high.
Round barns were in vogue then - later, advances in automatic milking machines would replace the three-legged stool and make round barns inefficient - but even so the size and style of this barn stood out.
What makes this barn even more impressive is that it was built by hand, without scaffolding or visible support beams, by a band of barn builders who were also brothers. The contractor and designer was Frank A. Felhofer, and when construction began on Thanksgiving Day of 1915, his main crew consisted of brothers John, Fred and Henry. Other brothers Charles, William and Edward helped out when extra hands were needed.
The barn's builders had to cut the fingers out of their gloves so they could pound nails in shingles in the coldest months of winter. But the Felhofer boys knew what they were doing. They guestimated the two-story roof would require 190,000 shingles, and it finally took 188,000.
The ground floor featured two rings of stalls surrounding an open show ring. A second floor was completed in 1917, and during early fairs, it was used for small animals like chickens and rabbits. Today, the second floor is considered too unstable to be used but the ground floor, now renovated to accommodate more than 300 head of cattle, is still in use.
You will find this cache at N44 32.ABC W90 01.DAA
A = How many Felhofer Boys were involved with the creation of the barn?
B = The barn is 15B feet in diameter and 7B feet high.
C = The barn was built with C50 stanchions.
D = The round barn was built in 191D.