Dougan Round Barn

The Dougan Round Barn in Beloit, Wisconsin, United States, was a round barn that was built in 1911. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. It was demolished in 2012. The barn served as a dairy barn until 1968. At its peak the farm had 120 cows. The owner of the farm was Wesson J. Dougan, a Methodist pastor who gave up the ministry when he became deaf. He purchased his farm in 1906, established the Dougan Dairy, and finished building the round barn in 1911. A pioneer in scientific farming and dairy management practices, Dougan was recognized in 1926 by the University of Wisconsin's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences with an Honorary Recognition Award, for combining "so successfully, skillful husbandry with a high type of rural life that his work has been a thoroughly constructive influence in the dairy industry. In this he has achieved high ideals to an unusual degree." When he retired, his son Ronald A Dougan took over the family's three farms, the dairy, the milk delivery business, and the hybrid seed corn business; RA Dougan retired in 1976, having sold his delivery business to a corporate producer. The story of the farm is told in a three-volume series of books by writer and university professor Jacqueline Dougan Jackson, the founder's granddaughter.