Just a ways down the road past the entrance of Johnson-Sauk Trail State Recreation Area, stands a structure that defies the era in which it was built. The complex shape was crafted by Dr. Laurence Ryan, a Henry County native, and built as a retreat from his work as a surgeon and chief of staff at St. Anthony’s Hospital in Chicago.

At 85 feet in diameter and 80 feet in height, Ryan’s Round Barn was inspired by the Pennsylvania Dutch and used to house 50 purebred Black Angus cattle. After Ryan died in 1932, the barn was used by tenant farmers until it was sold to the State of Illinois in 1968. In 1974, the barn was listed among other landmarks on the National Register of Historic Places.

Steve Christian was tour guide and president of the Friends of Johnson Park Foundation. For over a decade, he gave 45-minute tours of the barn to people from all over the United States and six or seven different countries. But on Saturday, Sept. 16, he gave his final tour.

A barn enthusiast, Christian has visited roughly 16 to 18 round barns all over the country, and he’ll miss the tours and meeting all the visitors. But Christian said his health and age require him to step down from his position. That leaves just a few volunteers to manage the barn and that concerns him.

“There’s only two volunteers. You have to keep it cleaned and certain duties that have to be performed,” he said.

The park foundation has dwindled and only a few people know every nook and cranny of the barn. Christian is one of them. He has studied barns of all kinds for years, but Ryan’s barn is distinctive in not just its shape, but the labor and ingenuity that went into creating it, as well as the barn’s manure handling system.

“The way the wood was soaked and wrapped so they could laminate it,” he said. “There are no beams in the barn and it’s as round on the inside as the outside. The floor was poured so everything would run down hill.” Christian said.

There are dozens more details about the barn that Christian can recite and that’s come from years of volunteering.

“I’ve had a fantastic run,” he said. “I’ve loved every minute of it and thoroughly enjoyed it all. It’s just time to step aside and let someone else take over.”

Stepping in for Christian will be Dan Bennett, who will serve as foundation president and tour guide. But he too, worries about the future of the barn. No more guided tours will be offered this season.

“Tours are up in the air,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to continue next summer.”

Bennett said they are currently looking at bringing in volunteers who could learn the history and intricacies of the barn in order to conduct tours. Volunteers are even needed just to be present when the barn is open to the public for self-guided tours. Tours are offered every other Saturday from May until the end of September.

Author and speaker Melanie Holmes included Ryan’s Round Barn in her latest book, “100 Things to do in Illinois Before You Die,” published this spring by Reedy Press. Like Christian, Holmes is a barn enthusiast and visited the site in 2019. She met with Christian and took a tour. The barn is not only the largest of its kind in the state, but in the country, she said. It’s one of many barns she’s visited, but her Henry County experience was one of a kind.

“In all the barns I have looked at, I’ve not found one that gives tours, so this is unique,” she said.

Since her book came out in May, Holmes, who lives in the Chicago area, said there has been an increase in tourism to the barn and county. Her goal in writing the book was to support and uplift Illinois. The last Ryan’s Round Barn tour saw almost 50 visitors, but with Christian retiring, she also worries about the barn’s fate.

“They need an infusion of volunteers and I knew that back in 2019,” she said.

Holmes said the round barn is a “gem” and “a tourism driver” and with a new roof added recently, the barn has been kept in pristine condition.

“If it doesn’t have volunteers, it will fall apart,” she said. “It would be a shame for it to fall into disrepair. There’s been a lot of work for a lot of years, and it would be good to keep it going.”

Anyone interested in volunteering is asked to contact Bennett at bennetdan@gmail.com.