The idea of quilt barns actually started in Adams County, Ohio, when Donna Sue Groves gave her mother a unique present. Donna Sue and her mother shared a fondness for both quilts and barns. In 1989 they purchased a thirty acre property with a barn, and Donna had the perfect canvas for her gift, a quilt square using the “Snail & Square Trail” pattern. Friends and neighbors saw the quilt, calls started coming, and the first quilt barn committee was formed. Since then, the quilt squares have spread across Ohio to Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Iowa, and North Carolina and beyond.

 Besides creating beautiful public art, the project hopes to draw tourists off the expressways to follow the quilt trails to some of the Madison County agri-tourism businesses, historical sites, and tourist attractions.

For the most part, Madison County’s committee has chosen to use traditional, geometric designs.  Underground railroad patterns are being used where the quilt trail coincides with the Madison County Civil War Driving Tour and the Battlefield Park.