Petty-Roberts-Beatty House

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

From the record

“The Petty-Roberts-Beatty House, also known as the Octagon House, is an historic octagonal house in Clayton, Alabama, United States. The structure was one of only two antebellum octagonal houses built in Alabama and is the only one to survive.”
Wikipedia article Petty-Roberts-Beatty House, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 20 National Register listings published here for Barbour County · listed in 1974 · category: Building.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

What is counted as historic. The nomination lists 1 building as contributing to the listing.
Listed as. Petty--Roberts--Beatty House - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. 103 N. Midway, Clayton, 36016
When was it listed? January 1974
Category. building
Census division. Clayton
National Register reference number. 74000400 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

81 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 81 fires within 5 miles of Petty-Roberts-Beatty House between 1994 and 2018, burning about 529 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 9 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	35
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	18
Arson/incendiarism	9
Equipment and vehicle use	8
Recreation and ceremony	5
Smoking	2
Power generation/transmission/distribution	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1
Natural	1
Railroad operations and maintenance	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
5 September 1997	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
3 September 1995	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
20 September 1997	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
18 September 2000	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
11 September 2014	Equipment and vehicle use	34 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	SER-20140911-001
9 August 2017	Debris and open burning	3.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	20170809-1
9 August 2008	Equipment and vehicle use	7.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
5 August 1998	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named

Every fire recorded in Barbour County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 20 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 20 workings within 5 miles of Petty-Roberts-Beatty House: 16 unknowns, 3 occurrences, 1 prospect. None of them still produces. What was taken out: Iron, Clay. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Bar 1 Clay Prospect	Clay	Prospect
Bowden Deposits	Clay	Occurrence
Unnamed	Iron	Unknown
Unnamed	Iron	Unknown
Unnamed	Iron	Unknown
Unnamed	Iron	Unknown
Unnamed	Iron	Unknown
Unnamed	Iron	Unknown
Unnamed	Iron	Unknown
Unnamed	Iron	Unknown

Every working recorded in Barbour County

Storms near this property

22 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Clayton, the town this property stands in, in 22 storm reports between 1995 and 2023: 11 hail, 7 thunderstorm wind, 2 funnel cloud, 2 tornado. The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
January 2006	Tornado (F0)	Clayton	1 hurt, $250,000	The tornado touched down at 12:20 PM CST in the Barbour County Wildlife Management Area, near the intersection of Charles Drive and County Road 49. It then moved northeastward and skirted County Road 49, then moved across a large wooded area and open pasture area. Several hundred trees were snapped off and uprooted near the beginning of the tornado damage path. As the tornado traveled northeast, a large warehouse at a family owned sod farm was completely destroyed. An office used by the sod farm was heavily damaged due to a large tree falling on it. The tornado crossed US 82 between the Comer community and the Batesville community. As the tornado crossed US 82, an automobile was tossed some 80 feet off the roadway. One male occupant of the car was injured and transported to the hospital. The tornado traveled just over a mile past US 82 and snapped off several hundred more trees before lifting north of US 82 near Bear Creek at approximately 1233 PM CST. The tornado snapped off many hundreds of trees along its path. One warehouse was destroyed, one office was heavily damaged, and one home sustained roof damage. Metal tin from the roof of a shed was thrown at least a half mile down the tornado path. At least one automobile was damaged and one man was injured. The tornado path length was 8.5 miles long and was 100 yards wide at its widest point.Begin: 31.9875/85.4472 End: 32.0328/85.3122
April 2002	Hail	Clayton	$15,000	A supercell thunderstorm moved across Barbour County producing very large hail and some tree damage. Dime to baseball size hail fell along the path of the storm. Many locations reported accumulations of hail on the ground. Several trees were also blown down and many trees received damage from the large hail. This was the same storm that produced the F0 tornado south of Clayton.
June 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Clayton	$12,000	Trees were blown down. Tin roof of three trailers at Ventress Correctional Facility were peeled off.
March 1996	Hail	Clayton	$10,000	no account filed
June 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Clayton	$8,000	Trees were knocked down along SR 51 around mile marker 58. Some of the fallen trees landed on automobiles. No injuries were reported.
December 2005	Hail	Clayton	$6,000	Golf ball size hail fell in and around Clayton and covered the ground in several locations.
March 2002	Thunderstorm Wind	Clayton	$6,000	A large tree was blown down and landed on an automobile. The vehicle suffered moderate damage.
March 2005	Hail	Clayton	$5,000	Golf ball size hail was reported near the White Oak community by the Fire Department.
July 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Clayton	$5,000	Numerous power outages were reported in Clayton due to downed trees.
May 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Clayton	$3,000	A couple of trees were blown down on SR 51 near Clayton.
August 2005	Thunderstorm Wind	Clayton	$3,000	Several trees were blown down and a few large limbs were snapped off near Clayton.
August 1995	Thunderstorm Wind	Clayton	$3,000	Trees were reported down in the Clayton area.
March 1997	Hail	Clayton	$3,000	no account filed
September 2004	Tornado (F0)	Clayton	$2,000	A brief weak tornado was reported east of Clayton. Several trees were knocked down. This weak tornado was associated with an outer rain band of the tropical system Ivan. Approximate location 31.91N/85.30W.
May 2001	Hail	Clayton	$2,000	Quarter size hail fell between Clayton and Eufaula.
June 2023	Hail	Clayton	-	Nickel size hail reported in Clayton.
March 2007	Funnel Cloud	Clayton	-	A funnel cloud moved just north of the city of Clayton, but no damage was observed.
March 2005	Hail	Clayton	-	Nickel size hail was reported just west of the city of Clayton. The hail may have been larger but fellacross rural locations.
April 2004	Hail	Clayton	-	State Troopers reported quarter size hail along the storms path across southern Barbour County.
May 2003	Hail	Clayton	-	Nickel size hail was reported in Clayton.
September 1998	Funnel Cloud	Clayton	-	A funnel cloud was reported in western Barbour County west of Clayton.
April 2006	Hail	Clayton	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Barbour County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

4 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Grace Episcopal Church	0.1 miles	1995
Miller-Martin Town House	0.3 miles	1974
Henry D. Clayton House	0.9 miles	1976
Fendall Hall	1.7 miles	1970

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 74000400 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Barbour County	All 20 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.