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The Octagon Barn will undergo a 6-week repair project beginning at the end of June. The rest of the agricultural museum will be open to the public for individual tours. All summer events are canceled.
Bill Diller/For the Tribune
lessThe Octagon Barn will undergo a 6-week repair project beginning at the end of June. The rest of the agricultural museum will be open to the public for individual tours. All summer events are canceled.
Bill
... more
The Octagon Barn will undergo a 6-week repair project beginning at the end of June. The rest of the agricultural museum will be open to the public for individual tours. All summer events are canceled.
Bill Diller/For the Tribune
lessThe Octagon Barn will undergo a 6-week repair project beginning at the end of June. The rest of the agricultural museum will be open to the public for individual tours. All summer events are canceled.
Bill
... moreGAGETOWN —The Thumb Octagon Barn lies in Tuscola County, about 1-mile northeast of Gagetown. Originally built as a 15-room home, it is the largest barn in Michigan attracting nearly 20,000 visitors per year.
In March, they announced their cancellation of the School Tours that were scheduled May 13-15. Plans have begun for next year’s tour, themed: “The Farm Family!” The museum closed towards the end of April and announced recently they will open in July. Friends group past President Rose Putnam says they will have a date by the end of June.
The Octagon Barn, however, will undergo a 6-week repair project that was originally planned a while back but was delayed due to the pandemic.
In spite of the coronavirus, only individual tours will be available. They will be open Tuesday through Saturday 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and Sunday noon-5 p.m.
All scheduled summer events have been canceled. July events originally scheduled included a Music Weekend, a Themed Tea Party, and an Open House Weekend. The Annual Volunteer Picnic and Auction was postponed until August 16, followed days later by Teamwork and Timbers, but both have since been canceled. Also, on that list are September’s events, including The Fish Fry and Fall Family Days 2020.
Putnam said while summer events are not very large, Fall Family Days has attracted over 15,000 people. The decision to cancel this came after long consideration.
“Everyone is feeling that same uncertainty of how we can manage large crowds without guidelines,” she said. “It’s not safe at this time to do that.”
The Octagon Barn is one of eleven main attractions of the Agricultural Museum. The One Room Country School was originally donated from Sebewaing. Shortly after, they received a plethora of donated school items that they did not have storage space for so a museum for one-room schools was created.
Another site is the Grain Elevator that features vintage equipment to demonstrate how they used to work in the 19th century. The elevator was retrieved from a steel building in Cass City. A Cider Mill is also featured on the property, with a 1914 cider press donated about six five years ago. The Sugar Shack, built in 2009, demonstrates syrup making. The Blacksmith Shop, constructed in 2010, houses a Bradley Compact Power Hammer dating back to the late 1800s. Also in it are two blacksmith stations with appropriate equipment. In addition, they built a historical-looking covered bridge with material from the barn and cedar shake shingles.
Other attractions include the Purdy House, which replicates the home of the original owner. A powerhouse also built by the owner has been reconstructed but it is believed that the owner purposed it to power his farm. The Munro Building, named after the brothers who built the Octagon Barn, is a multipurpose building that holds equipment and also provides space for events.
These models of the past have lured Americans for years but would not exist today had locals not taken an interest centuries ago.
In 1890, 21-year-old James Luther Purdy joined his father at the Bank of P.C. Purdy and Son in Gagetown. He eventually became president to the bank, and it became one of two that survived the Great Depression. Post-Depression, he and other Lansing bankers formulated a plan to restore the banking system that he then traveled to D.C. with, to propose it to Michigan Senator Arthur Vandenburg. Vandenburg introduced the bill to the Senate to which it gained support from President Franklin Roosevelt and eventually formed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Years later, Purdy was traveling through Iowa when he saw an octagonal barn, inspiring him to create his own identical one. In 1895, he purchased 40 acres of land and after many years expanded for a total of 560 acres. The octagonal barn was later built in 1923 by George and John Munro.
Purdy sold the farm in 1942. It recycled owners for years until the Department of Natural Resources purchased it from the Pinney State Bank of Cass City on October 10, 1991. The DNR purchased the land because it connected two parts of the Gagetown State Game Area. However, they planned to remove, sell, or demolish the dilapidated buildings, including the barn.
A group comprised of local citizens, eventually named The Friends of the Thumb Octagon Barn, arose after finding out the intents of the DNR. At the same time, an organization named Tuscola 2001 took an interest in the barn. A formal effort to save the buildings commenced on January 31, 1994. The Friends hosted the first Octagon Barn Festival on August 20, 1994 to spread awareness of their cause. They found that the former owner, Zsigmond Egey-Samu, had placed the building called the “Round Barn”, on the Michigan State Registry of Historic Sites in 1977. This prevented any destruction to it whatsoever.
The Friends obtained a three-year memorandum of understanding from the DNR in 1996, which gave the authority over 8.2 acres of the land with permission to hold events on site as well as the ability to restore all of the buildings. The group had to, in turn, provide liability insurance and assemble a twenty-five-year plan detailing their goals and objectives for the sites. On August 19, 1997, they became a 501(c)3 tax-exempt non-profit corporation.
After the restoration of all on-site buildings, the Friends set a goal to develop an Agricultural Museum for the Thumb Area. The plan included interior displays unique to each buildings era to tell a story.
Today, the Thumb Octagon Barn offers numerous activities for people of all ages. School tours are offered in May for all grades between preschool and eighth grade. Last year’s theme, “Food Industry… Past and Present” educated students on food preparation and preservation. In partnership with Knowlton’s Ice Museum, they taught students harvesting and storage methods along with preservation techniques like salting, smoking, canning, and drying fruits.
Other attractions on the site such as homes, bridges, mills, and an elevator recreate the life of the Purdy family in the early 1900s. The barn also offers weddings, socials, and food events.
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Historic barn offers fun and education in Tuscola county - Huron Daily Tribune
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