Temple of Tolerance

Wapakoneta, Ohio, United States

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Listed, not yet checked · Oct 2026

This Big Thing is recorded as still being here.

The Temple of Tolerance is a folk-art environment of boulders, stone structures and salvaged objects built by Jim Bowsher (1948 to 2024) behind his family's South Wood Street property in Wapakoneta, Ohio. The Daily Standard reported in April 2026 that it is free to explore from dawn to dusk.

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Temple of Tolerance

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Site-level location · 40.5688° N, 84.1847° W

FIELD GUIDE

The story

Thousands of rocks, a barrel-shaped house and jail doors that, according to the Daily Standard, citing the site's website, once held members of the Dillinger gang sit behind a residential street in Wapakoneta, and the man who built it said he meant it as a place for kids.

Jim Bowsher, a local historian, collector and storyteller, began building the Temple of Tolerance in his backyard in 1981, according to SPACES, the archive of art environments, and Ohio Magazine. Over the next 18 years he bought neighbouring properties and built deeper into the block, setting the last stone on 9 September 1999. In a Daily Standard interview he gave a different start, saying he began work on it in 1990. He said his aim was a sanctuary for troubled young people, and that he wanted the yard to be unique enough to draw them in.

The central temple is a circular pile of boulders that, according to SPACES, Bowsher dug up in rural Ohio along the glacier line, mostly from nearby farms; SPACES says it resembles the ruins of a lost civilization. Around it are millstones, urns, a stage for music, a Memorial to Ohio War Dead and a barrel-shaped house. SPACES reports a claim that the Barrel House is the only house in the US deliberately built to look like a barrel. Size accounts differ: The Daily Standard caption says more than 100,000 pounds of stone, SPACES and Ohio Magazine say hundreds of tons, and WYSO says 9,999 rocks.

Bowsher died on 12 June 2024. In April 2026 a site trustee told the Daily Standard that the property was in transition while legal hurdles to creating a trust were overcome; SPACES's earlier entry says he had willed it to the city. The site is free, with donations accepted, and the only rule SPACES lists is the one in its name: tolerance.

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WHAT TO EXPECT

Walk-through backyard art environment of boulders, stone structures, a stage and salvaged objects, entered by the driveway. The Daily Standard (April 2026) says it is free to explore from dawn to dusk; donations are accepted. Paths wind through vegetation, so the view changes with the season.

ACCESS

On South Wood Street in Wapakoneta, entered by the driveway of the house at the front. Reported open daily dawn to dusk and free in April 2026; the property is being moved into a trust, so confirm current access.

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34 km away

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