What is this building? Why is there a 0 - 25 scale in large numbers on the side of it?

Tom Mann , Feb 04, 2012; 02:16 a.m.

Yesterday, out of the blue, my nephew stopped by and presented me with four 5" x 7" glass negative plates that he picked up in a flea market, and asked me if I could help him figure out where and when they were taken. If I had to guess, because of their similarity, they all appear to have been taken by the same photographer at nearly the same time.

Other than one broken one, they were all in surprisingly good shape. They hardly were degraded by the passage of time. They were sharp, well exposed and with a nice gray scale, so the photographer clearly knew what he was doing. I scanned and inverted them, and they produced the images you see * here *.

The 1st thing that caught my eye was a 1 story high cylindrical building / barn / shed with a conical roof and an odd horizontal sign / scale ( 0 - 25 in some units), with 2 - 3 foot high numbers!? At the time of the photograph this structure was behind a chain link fence. The advertisement for the Bernhard and Turner auto company in front of the structure tells us that it is/was located 10 miles away from Des Moines, Iowa. I was able to find a reference to that auto shop from 1915.

I don't think it one of the famous Iowa "Round Barns" because it isn't as tall as the ones you typically see, but I could be wrong. In addition, I've never seen such a sign / scale on the side of one of those barns, but Iowa round barns are definitely not my specialty

Moving on to the shot down the tree-lined dirt road, as you can see from the enlargement, there appears to be 1920's or early '30's cars in the distance. Whenever visible, the power poles, insulators and other electrical paraphernalia seem relatively modern, so I'm guessing these photos were shot in the mid 1930s, but I could easily be wrong. Perhaps they were shot as part of the WPA / FSA project.

If anyone has any information / thoughts on these images, I would love to hear from you.

Regards,

Tom M

PS - Since I did not take these shots myself, I intentionally did not post these images in-line to conform to photo.net's policy on such matters.

Responses

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Colin Carron , Feb 04, 2012; 03:24 a.m.

Just a guess - but I wonder if the round building was some sort of grain or crop drying barn. The roof would rotate a bit to take best advantage of the wind direction. The scale on the side would then show the angle in degrees. But as I say - just a guess. Crop drying floors are sometimes used in brewing.

Bob Tilden , Feb 04, 2012; 08:01 a.m.

Water storage tank? Numbers indicate depth...

William Kahn , Feb 04, 2012; 08:52 a.m.

Tom, posting an image would be helpful. It's the moderator's call, but I think anything shot back in the 1930s would almost certainly be in the public domain now. I have posted shots from my father's collection of Panama Canal Zone photos ca. 1930 with no problem...

David Cavan , Feb 04, 2012; 08:55 a.m.

William - the OP posted a link in his third paragraph.

I'm also guessing it has to do with a granary/drying use, although I have no clue what the numeric strip on the exterior means.

john robison , Feb 04, 2012; 09:13 a.m.

In the picture with the car there is a man with his back to us wearing what looks like a military uniform. One of the buildings has the sign 'Headquarters' on it. So some kind of military base perhaps.

William Kahn , Feb 04, 2012; 09:27 a.m.

Thanks, David. Don't know how I missed that.

The buildings in the shots look to be typical military construction in that period, so I think it's an old Army base. That might help somewhat with the scale on the round building. It runs from 0 to 23 then jumps to 25, and there appears to be some kind of indicator on the top right at about 23. I think it's a weird military time clock.

The round building itself is still a mystery, unless there was a rail system into the base (not uncommon back then), in which case it might be on old roundhouse.

I'm just sayin'...

William Kahn , Feb 04, 2012; 09:42 a.m.

Another thought: There appears to be a guard tower in the same shot with the cars. Possibly a prison camp at one time? Also, the cars look to be about 1920s vintage.

Nick Sanyal , Feb 04, 2012; 09:54 a.m.

Tom, it looks like the round building is made from concrete, which adds credence to the water storage idea. Military base is possible, since one building is labeled "Headquarters".

Alan Klein , Feb 04, 2012; 09:59 a.m.

The scale appears to show the depth of whatever they would store in the bldg and how far it was from capacity. The gradations may mean feet or could have been converted to mean bushels (100's?) or some other variant. They could be using some sort of cantilever set-up so to show the depth on a horizontal scale. Of course, I'm from NYC so it's a pretty big guess from an urban dweller who's never been to Iowa.

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