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Photograph of Gerald Harbach Round Barn
Photograph by IvoShandor, CC BY 2.5. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Gerald Harbach Round Barn

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

From the record

“The Gerald Harbach Round Barn is a round barn near Eleroy, an unincorporated community in Stephenson County, Illinois, United States. The builder and designer of the building are unknown but it is very similar to round barns designed by the team of Jeremiah Shaffer and the Hass Brothers.”

Wikipedia article Gerald Harbach Round Barn, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 16 National Register listings published here for Stephenson County · listed in 1984 · 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. Harbach, Gerald, Round Barn - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
  • Address. US 20, Eleroy, 61032
  • When was it listed? February 1984
  • Category. building
  • Also known as. Round Barns in Illinois TR
  • Township. Harlem township
  • National Register reference number. 84001155 - 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.

The ground it stands on

11,298 words

This property stands in Harlem Township. The History of Stephenson County, Illinois : Containing ... Biographical Sketches ... War Record ... Statistics ... Portraits of Early Settlers ... History of the Northwest, History of Illinois, &c. .., published 1880; History of Stephenson County, Illinois : a Record of Its Settlement, Organization, and Three-quarters of a Century of Progress, published 1910 gives that township a chapter of its own.

The chapter covers the township.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Harlem Township - 11,298 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Fires near this property

7 since 2004

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 7 fires within 5 miles of Gerald Harbach Round Barn between 2004 and 2017, burning about 11 acres in total. None started naturally. None was 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 burning3
Smoking2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined1
Recreation and ceremony1

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

DateCause SizeReported by Name on the report
14 May 2013Debris and open burning4.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources13-0000038
11 April 2014Smoking1.0 acresIllinois Division of Forestry Resources14-0000033
1 April 2010Smokingunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1024
22 March 2004Recreation and ceremony5.0 acresIllinois State Fire Marshal's Officenot named
1 December 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources17-0000125
26 October 2017Debris and open burningunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources17-0000116
13 October 2010Missing data/not specified/undeterminedunder an acreIllinois Division of Forestry Resources1090

Every fire recorded in Stephenson County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 16 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 16 workings within 5 miles of Gerald Harbach Round Barn: 12 past producers, 2 producers, 1 occurrence, 1 prospect. 2 still produce. What was taken out: Stone, Crushed/Broken, Copper. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where SiteCommodity StatusRecorded
Erin MoundCopperOccurrence
Erin MoundCopperProspect
Economy PitStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
FinkbinderStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
H. Homan QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Lobdell QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenProducer
Mills QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Unnamed Limestone QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Unnamed Limestone QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer
Unnamed Limestone QuarryStone, Crushed/BrokenPast Producer

Every working recorded in Stephenson County

Storms near this property

9 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Eleroy, the town this property stands in, in 9 storm reports between 1998 and 2022: 4 hail, 2 flash flood, 1 tornado, 1 heavy rain. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. 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.

WhenEvent Place namedHarm What the report says
August 2003HailEleroy$20,000no account filed
April 2006HailEleroy$2,000Jct of U.S. 20 & Bus 20; covered the ground
May 1998Tornado (F0)Eleroy$1,000Brief tornado damaged and uprooted trees.
August 2022Thunderstorm WindEleroy-A trained spotter reported several 8 to 10 inch branches down. Some trampolines were also turned over. The time of the event was estimated using radar.
September 2019Flash FloodEleroy-The Emergency Manager reported water 4 inches deep was over Highway 20. Law Enforcement was advising motorists to avoid that stretch of Highway 20.
July 2011Heavy RainEleroy-As of 909 am CDT July 28, the 15 hour rainfall total about 5 miles west northwest of Freeport, IL was 7.00 inches.
August 2002Flash FloodEleroy-Intersection of Highway 20 and Dameier Road flooded and impassable.
April 2014HailEleroy-no account filed
May 2004HailEleroy-no account filed

Every storm recorded in Stephenson 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

6 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.

Photograph PropertyDistance Listed
Dennis Otte Round Barn0.4 miles1984
Lena Water Tower6.0 miles1997
Stephenson County Courthouse6.1 miles1974
Soldiers' Monument6.1 miles1998
John H. Addams Homestead6.6 miles1979
Chris Jensen Round Barn6.8 miles1984

Sources for this property

National Archives recordThe nomination case file for reference 84001155 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia articleCommunity-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Stephenson CountyAll 16 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.