[2] The owner of the farm was Wesson J. Dougan, a Methodist pastor who gave up the ministry when he became deaf.

[citation needed] He purchased his farm in 1906, established the Dougan Dairy, and carpenter Mark Keller finished building the round barn in 1911.

[3] The barn sat on a concrete foundation, with a diameter of sixty feet, clad in bent horizontal wooden siding.

[4]: 7–9 A pioneer in scientific farming and dairy management practices, Wesson 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.

The story of the farm is told in a four-volume series of books by writer and university professor Jacqueline Dougan Jackson, the founder's granddaughter.