Littleton Round Barn
Littleton (Kingen) Round Barn East Elevation (HABS 1984) Image: Historic American Buildings Survey / Historic American Engineering Record (HABS/HAER) Collection, Ball State University. University Libraries. Andrew Seager Archives of the Built Environment
Photo by By Kristy Deer
“With a diameter spanning 102 feet, the Frank Littleton Round Barn is the largest circular barn in the state of Indiana. Completed circa 1903, it was designed by noted round barn architect Benton Steele and built by Horace Duncan and Isaac McNamee for a farmer in Hancock County, east of Indianapolis. The Littleton Round Barn is an example of a building type that dominated the agricultural landscape from approximately 1889 to 1936.” -source
The Littleton (Kingen) round barn was hit by a devastating tornado on Monday February 27th. Locally, winds exceeded 120mph. This recorded wind speed, for that area, is far above and beyond what agricultural buildings are required to be built to even meet current code.
Due to its incredible strength and superior construction, very little damage was sustained by the barn. One strut pushed through the floor system, some foundation damage occurred, and the building developed a list to the east. Fortunately, originally, no expense was spared– the building was well engineered, and built with exceptional materials. Additionally, the careful and fastidious maintenance of the building by its stewards ensured that almost no physical damage due to rot has occurred in this structure since its construction 120 years ago. Given the volume material (total board footage) in the building, possibly less than 1 percent of the structure has damage due to rot by insects or water.
The damage to the barn occurred due to the recent wind event on Feb 27th, 2023 and was not due to deferred maintenance, original design deficiencies, or other factors within the owner’s control. This is a superior, and well-built barn with a patented design, and constructed by one of the best round barn builders in the country at the time, with superior materials. It’s well-researched and well-engineered.
We conducted an assessment of the barn and concluded that the building could be repaired for substantially less than its replacement cost. This barn is almost entirely built of elm, with some sycamore for larger stitch plates on the derrick. The next step in this process was to scan the building so that we could design the repairs needed specific to this building.
30 Scans: 1,253,678,860 Measured Points
After processing and analyzing the scans, we were able to measure the deflection of the entire building and make a clear plan for stabilizing and reinforcing the barn.
This section is presented from the perspective of looking North to South. We can see that the 120 mph winds from the West pushed the entire building toward the East, flattening out the pitch of the roof on the West facets. The exterior wall on the West side is nearly 2.5’ out of plumb and the derrick tower is approximately 2’ out of plumb on the west side.
The deformation of the mid-span plate ring was significant enough to change the shape of the roof. Fortunately structural members had shifted and deflected but only one of the main struts had failed, by pushing through the lower wall plate.
We determined that it would be necessary to support and reinforce the mid-span plate ring by building spokes, much like the construction of a bicycle wheel. This would greatly increase the strength of the roof and prevent it from failing in the event of another storm of similar magnitude. The spokes would be constructed of 2x12 LVL and reinforced with chevron bracing to prevent deflection of the spoke itself. We also added X bracing to the struts on the perimeter of the building to prevent them from deflecting under load. This greatly increased the stability of the outer wall framing.
At the center of the wheel, we needed to create a strong hub to support all the spokes. We did this by harnessing the existing strength of the Derrick tower. We built up a stud wall in the location of existing heavy bolstered scarf connections, sheathed with 3/4” plywood. We built out a double 2x12 LVL ledger that was anchored to the studs in the sheathed wall. The LVL spokes were then fastened to the ledger using Simpson Strongtie hangers.
The derrick tower, as an axle to our wheel, needed a stronger connection to the earth and a counterweight to resist the force of the wind. We addressed this by pouring a 60-ton steel reinforced concrete disk at the base of the tower, approximately 32’ in diameter and 12” deep. We married the new disk to the existing piers using steel dowels epoxied horizontally into the existing piers prior to the pour of the new slab. The tower was anchored to the disk with embedded steel straps.
The foundation around the perimeter needed some love. We shored up the entire barn so a new, steel-reinforced, concrete foundation could be poured. We replaced the lower wall sill and wall framing and sheathed it with 3/4” plywood. This drastically increased the rigidity of the lower wall and ensured a strong connection from the wall to the foundation and the foundation to the earth.
