The Marion Ridgeway Polygonal Barn located in LaPorte County on the southern edge of

LaPorte, Indiana La Porte () is a city in LaPorte County, Indiana, United States, of which it is the county seat. Its population was estimated to be 21,341 in 2022. It is one of the two principal cities of the Michigan City-La Porte, Indiana metropolitan stat ...

, is a multi-sided barn. Built in 1878 by Marion Ridgeway and called the Door Prairie Barn. The barn sits east of

highway 35 The following highways are numbered 35: The Karakoram Highway (Urdu language, Urdu: شاہراہ قراقرم, ''Śāhirāh-i Qarāquram''), also known as the KKH, National Highway 35 (Urdu language, Urdu: قومی شاہراہ ۳۵), N-35, and ...

surrounded by woods and cultivated fields. The nine-sided barn is south of a rectangular barn. The barn has nine sides and is two stories tall. The roof is capped with a sectional cone roof with a nine-sided cupola in the

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

Italianate The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...

style. ''Note:'' This includes and Accompanying photographs. Within the louvered panels trim pieces resemble a lancet arch. The post and beam frame sits on wooden sill propped on stone.

Exterior

The roof is covered in wood shingles. There is an overhang, showing the

rafter A rafter is one of a series of sloped structural members such as Beam (structure), steel beams that extend from the ridge or hip to the wall plate, downslope perimeter or eave, and that are designed to support the roof Roof shingle, shingles, ...

s in the

soffit A soffit is an exterior architectural feature, generally the horizontal, aloft underside of the roof edge. Its archetypal form, sometimes incorporating or implying the projection of rafters or trusses over the exterior of supporting walls, is t ...

area. The walls are covered with horizontal tongue-and-groove beveled siding. Corner boards at used where each wall section adjoins the next. The barn faces north and has a large sliding door located off center to the west on the lower level. There are long, narrow openings with operable wood shutters at each side of the wall section, with identical openings on the upper level. The upper level has a small hay door with a large hay dormer. The dormer has an out-swinging hay door with a hay pulley at the top. The dormer is capped by a steeply pitched gable roof with exposed rafters. The first side, described above, is followed by side two with its window and four-foot-wide door. Side three has another window next to a door, and there is a smaller hay door on the upper level, above the window. Side four contains another window and door pair, while side five has the door and then the window with a smaller hay door above. Side six is roughly parallel to the road, has the door and window and on the upper level is painted: ''DOOR PRAIRIE 1878 LaPorte, Indiana''. Side seven and eight both have doors and windows. Side eight has an upper-level hay door above the window. Side nine contains the final door-and-window combination. The combination of windows and doors is said to give the barn its name: "Door Prairie Barn". The name also is an associations with in LaPorte County, which means "Door." The county was named because of a natural "door" between the woods to the north and east and the prairie to the west and south. This section of the county is called ''Door Prairie''. This doorway was a landmark on the Indian trail through the area. It became the site of Door Village.

Interior

The interior is an arrangement of pens. On the lower level, the north end of the barn has the main entrance. To the east is a permanent stairway to the upper level. Symmetrically from this northern bay are eight equally spaced stalls, each with a gate at the barn's center and containing a door and window on the outer wall. At each of the points of intersection of the inner stall walls are large posts that extend to an overhead beam, which braces the floor joists of the upper level. The center of the barn is left open for movement of animals. On the upper level, the bay to the east has a three-section grain bin. This bin corresponds to the size of the animal pen below and does not extend to the roof above. Each compartment has a grain chute from the upper to the lower level. A walkway provides access to the large hay doors and makes the moving of the hay and straw easier. Most of the upper level is open for the storage of

hay Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticate ...

and

straw Straw is an agricultural byproduct consisting of the dry wikt:stalk, stalks of cereal plants after the grain and chaff have been removed. It makes up about half of the crop yield, yield by weight of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, ry ...

Bibliography

*Hanou, John. Research compiled on Indiana's round and polygonal barns from 1986 to present. Archived at Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, 340 West Michigan Street, Indianapolis, IN 46202. *Intensive architectural survey of Indiana's round and polygonal barns. Conducted June to August 1991, conducted by Jerry McMahan, areawide survey of round and polygonal architectural and historical resources. *Kesling, Dr. Peter C. Owner of the Ridgeway (Kesling) barn, LaPorte, Indiana Interviewed by Jerry McMahan, October 18, 1991. *Soike, Lowell J. Without Right Angles, The Round Barns of Iowa. Des Moines, IA: Iowa State Historical Department, Office of Historic Preservation, 1983.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ridgeway, Marion, Polygonal Barn Round barns in Indiana Barns on the National Register of Historic Places in Indiana Buildings and structures completed in 1878 Buildings and structures in LaPorte County, Indiana National Register of Historic Places in LaPorte County, Indiana 1878 establishments in Indiana