Maria and Franklin Wiltrout Polygonal Barn

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.

From the record

“Maria and Franklin Wiltrout Polygonal Barn, also known as the Alfred Barn, is a historic 14-sided barn located in Fairfield Township, DeKalb County, Indiana. Built in 1910, the structure is a two-story, wood-frame structure measuring 60 feet in width.”
Wikipedia article Maria and Franklin Wiltrout Polygonal Barn, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 29 National Register listings published here for DeKalb County · listed in 1993 · 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. Wiltrout, Maria and Franklin, Polygonal Barn - the National Register files a house under its owner's surname.
Address. 0209 Co. Rd. 16, Corunna, 46730
When was it listed? April 1993
Category. building
Also known as. Round and Polygonal Barns of Indiana MPS
Township. Fairfield township
National Register reference number. 93000183 - 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

852 words

The chapter on Fairfield Township in History of Dekalb County, Indiana, with Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Old Families, published 1914 names Corunna. This is what it says, exactly as the scans read.

Willard Childs, one of the prominent early settlers, started on foot from his home in Onondaga county. New York, and walked through to Fort Wayne, thence to Kendallville, where there were but two cabins, and taking a guide came into DeKalb county, March 4, 1837, the day Martin Van Buren was inaugurated President of the United States. He selected one hundred and twenty acres on section 27, paid for it, and then set to work at Fort Wayne to earn enough to take him home. When the land was entered the Storys were the sole occupants of the territory of Fairfield township. Mr. Childs returned in October, 1844, to pay taxes, and to review his purchase, to decide on making the place his home. Settlers had moved in, and in the southeast was David McNabb and family. Farther east was Wilbur Powell, and on the north adjoining was the cabin and clearing of George Powell, the first justice of the peace in the township afterward. In 1846 Childs moved in, and made his home temporarily with Benjamin Chaffee, who sold his place to Childs and made another settlement in the north part of the township. He afterward became postmaster at Corunna. Rufus R. Lounsberry, of Wilmington, William and Isaac Wilsey, D. Rager, Hiram Thomas, Phillip Gushwa, John Shook, Henry and Leonard Hartman, and Miles Allen were also early settlers in Faii-field township.

Passage source: History of Dekalb County, Indiana, with Biographical Sketches of Representative Citizens and Genealogical Records of Old Families, published 1914.

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 Fairfield Township - 852 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.

Mines and quarries near this property

2 within 5 miles

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 2 workings within 5 miles of Maria and Franklin Wiltrout Polygonal Barn: 2 producers. All of them still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Where	Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
	Gunsaullus Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
	Steward Property	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer

Storms near this property

10 since 2000

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Corunna, the town this property stands in, in 10 storm reports between 2000 and 2025: 5 hail, 3 thunderstorm wind, 2 tornado. 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.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
October 2001	Tornado (F2)	Corunna	$1,000,000	no account filed
May 2024	Hail	Corunna	$200,000	Hail damage in Corunna, cars, siding, and roofs damaged from 3 inch hail stones.
July 2000	Tornado (F1)	Corunna	$50,000	This tornado was the first of two weak tornadoes that formed from the same storm. The first touchdown occurred at SR327 and CR16 in the western part of the county. A mobile home was blown off its foundation and completely destroyed. A garage/shed to the northwest of this home sustained damaged to the roof and the garage door was ripped off and left inside the garage.
March 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	Corunna	$20,000	Power poles and trees are down.
May 2024	Hail	Corunna	$15,000	no account filed
June 2021	Thunderstorm Wind	Corunna	-	The public reports that a tree fell onto a house and knocked town the phone lines.
May 2018	Hail	Corunna	-	The public reported hail to the size of golf balls.
June 2010	Thunderstorm Wind	Corunna	-	Multiple trees and power lines were downed across town.
January 2006	Hail	Corunna	-	no account filed
January 2006	Hail	Corunna	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in DeKalb 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.

Property	Distance	Listed
Brethren in Christ Church	6.9 miles	1983
William Fountain House	7.0 miles	1983
Gump House	7.0 miles	1983
Breechbill-Davidson House	7.1 miles	1983
Joseph Bowman Farmhouse	7.4 miles	1983
Dekalb County Home and Barn	8.0 miles	1983

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 93000183 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
DeKalb County	All 29 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.
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.