May/June 2025 (Volume 17, Issue 3)

 

By Dave Austin 

 

The Secrest Octagonal Barn in rural West Branch, a 2023 recipient of the Iowa Barn Foundation Award of Distinction, is a must-see stop on the 2025 Cedar County Barn Tour to be held June 21-22. Just as interesting as its unique design is its backstory that begins in 1883 and continues today under the stewardship of a longtime University of Iowa professor of otolaryngology and speech pathology and audiology. 

 

“There is no barn like it anywhere else in the world,” said its owner, Richard Tyler, the aforementioned University of Iowa professor, who is also an audiologist at UI Health Care and the Carver College of Medicine. 

 

Tyler has spent the last 30 years renovating the barn and speaking about the importance of preserving Iowa’s agricultural heritage. To hear him talk, one would think that Iowa agriculture has been in his blood since he was born. The truth is that he has no farming background … and he is from Ontario, Canada.

 

Tyler recounts how he first laid eyes on the eight-sided, Johnson County barn in 1992 when its walls were buckling under a leaky roof and its rooms were filled with mud and rotting hay.

 

“I was looking for a property nearby West Branch where I could take my young children for walks, and maybe even camp,” he said. “A friend told me there was a farmstead down the gravel road, and nobody lived there, and the owner might sell it to me. 

 

“I visited and saw an old farmhouse and old barn … both falling down. The owner offered to sell it to me, but I wasn’t sure I wanted it or what I would do with it if I did buy it. 

 

“A month later, the owner said he had found someone else who was interested in buying it and asked if I had made up my mind. Just like that, I replied ‘OK, I’ll buy it!’ While I had always been interested in architecture, little did I know that my quick decision had just started the project of a lifetime to save an Iowa treasure.”

 

 

With the aid of grants from the State Historical Society of Iowa and the Historic Preservation Alliance, as well as countless hours of volunteer labor, Tyler has restored the 1883 Secrest Farmstead and Octagonal Barn and works diligently to promote its history and modern-day use (free tours, school field trips, weddings, non-profit events). As a member of the Humanities Iowa Speakers Bureau, Tyler speaks to audiences across the state and offers three slide presentations about the barn, including “If Barns Could Talk,” “Your Grampa and Gramma’s Farm,” and “Why Save an Old Barn?” His extensive research reveals the history of the family that owned the farm, and the carpenter who built it. 

 

Joshua and Esther Secrest purchased the land where the barn stands in 1875. They were early, successful, Iowa livestock farmers in Johnson County with a farmstead of 520 acres. The average size farm in Iowa at the time was 133 acres. 

 

In 1883, the Secrests hired a local carpenter, Frank Longerbeam, to plan and construct a large round barn to store hay and house their farm equipment, horses and cattle. Joshua Secrest and Longerbeam gathered around the kitchen table on the farmstead and designed the one-of-a-kind barn. This was all done despite Longerbeam having no formal training in architecture or carpentry. Tyler does note that Longerbeam had a reputation for being a stickler for quality work. He said, “If the average carpenter put in three nails, Frank would put in five.”

 

TO READ THE ENTIRE STORY AND OTHER FASCINATING STORIES ABOUT IOWA HISTORY, subscribe to Iowa History Journal.