Round Barn – Arcadia, Oklahoma
2012.12.22
The town of Arcadia is about five miles east of I-35 on old Route 66. You can’t miss the big red round barn. Round (or polygonal) barns seem unusual to us today, but they’ve been around a long time. In England, farmers began to build roof structures over the circle where horses walked to power mills. The first documented multi-sided barn on this side of the Atlantic contained a horse-driven threshing mill at George Washington’s Dogue Run farm near Mount Vernon. By 1910, the University of Illinois had published The Economy of the Round Barn, promoting them as cheaper and easier to build as well as more efficient to operate. As machinery replaced hand labor, round barns fell out of favor.
The barn was built by William H. Odor in April 1898, long before there was even a road, much less a national highway. The structure was bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) found along the nearby Deep Fork River and milled with a steam-powered circular saw. The boards were soaked and then set in curved forms to dry. Overall dimensions are sixty feet in diameter and forty-three feet in height.
Two men helping in the construction convinced Odor to plank the loft floor in smooth boards rather than rough, arguing that barn dances would help pay for the difference. The nearly half-spherical volume of the loft turned out to provide excellent acoustics. The dances would continue off and on into the 1930’s.
Around 1917, mule-driven road graders and convict labor built a dirt road through Arcadia, designated State Highway 7. In 1926, it became part of US-66, and paving arrived in 1929. A 1903 photo shows the barn painted white and sporting a large advertisement for an Oklahoma City department store (the sign faced the MK&T railroad tracks). Later photos show many advertisements facing the highway.
In 1946 the barn was purchased by Frank Vrana. He cut a large doorway and removed part of the loft so trucks could back in to load and unload hay. After standing almost fifty years in solid condition, the barn began to twist and lean due to the large opening. Still, another four decades would pass before a windstorm caused the roof to collapse. The Vrana family had recently donated it to the newly-formed Arcadia Historical and Preservation Society.
Retired carpenter Luke Robinson and other volunteers of the Over-the-Hill Gang raised money and slowly rebuilt the barn. Robinson tried to match the original construction as much as possible, using bur oak timbers and custom milling new siding to match the old. The barn opened to the public in April 1992. The ground floor is filled with memorabilia, and antique equipment is scattered around outside.
Territorial Plaza II