91A.489(b).1

The "octagon house," around 1966. Built in the 1870s for S. J. Starr, an Ames physician, its octagonal shape enabled its residents to use less wood while heating more efficiently than would have been the case in contemporary rectangular houses. The Octagon Center for the Arts used this house as its headquarters from 1966 to 1968 and adopted the shape of the house in its name even after it moved to its location in the Masonic Building on the southwest corner of Fifth Street and Douglas Avenue in downtown Ames. The octagon house was burned down as part of a fire-fighting exercise at the annual Iowa State Fire School practice in June, 1982. The house had been located at 128 Sumner Avenue. Part of the Sumner street sign can be seen in the far right of this photograph. [There is no negative for this print in the Farwell T. Brown Archive.]