[2]: 8  The interior echos Shaker design with hay and feed were stored in the center for livestock housed around the circumference.

Lumber was being harvested from the Great Black Swamp and shipped via the railway after the 1880s-1890s burst of barrel and stave manufacturing.

Agricultural experimentation was happening at the turn of the century as a result of the new wealth from manufacturing, prompting the University of Illinois to develop and encourage round barns as being more efficient way to tend animals and store harvest and supplies.

[1][4][5] Jason Manchester migrated at age 12 with his family from Vermont in 1865 with his parents, taking over of 500 acres of unfarmed land.

He aspired to be recognized as a model farm in the Midwest, developing the estate with improvement programs that produced impressive yields and encouraged new technology and engineering, such as the round barn and modern harvesters.