Built out of blocks of prairie sod, this style of construction was used in the northern prairie, where the densely tangled roots of wild grasses created tough - and freely available - building material. Although some historic sod houses still exist, many of them were built as temporary homes for the first homesteaders who settled there.
After the Civil War, in the second half of the 1800's, when settlers moving westward across the Great Plains wanted to build their dwellings on the prairies, they faced a unique dilemma: there were very few trees! But the dense roots of the prairie grasses made the first several inches of soil very tough. People realized they could cut this packed top soil into bricks and use it to build homes. In Europe, people had used bricks made of thick peat moss to build temporary shelters for centuries.
HOW did settlers take clumps of dirt and build a house?
Two adults would sit on a sled "sod cutter" with sharp runners, or "cutter bars". A draft animal (a mule, an ox, or a strong horse) would pull the sled along the prairie. The weight of the adults would help the cutter bars slice into the ground. Men would then cut these long rows of sod horizontally into two foot bricks. The bricks would be stacked into walls that were very thick.
WHAT materials were used to build sod houses?
Wood was used very sparingly, for window frames, doors, and ceilings, because it was so scarce. Nails were used to attach the window and door frames to the sod bricks. (The earliest sod houses didn't even have windows. Sometimes a family would just build a sod hut as shelter until they could build a bigger sod house, with windows that they could to order from a supply merchant and a cast iron stove for cooking and heating.) The walls, made of sod bricks, were very thick, which kept the house warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The floors were hard packed earth. The roof was made of sod bricks as well. Unlike log or post and beam homes, sod houses did not always last along time. And many of the settlers who first lived in sod houses moved into a timber framed house once they could afford it.
WHY did people build sod houses?
"Soddies" used the some of few building materials freely available on the prairie - dense turf cut into bricks. They were well-adapted to the extreme temperatures found in the prairies. And they did not take long to build.
(Visit the McCone family's Sod House on the Prairie, Sanborn, Minnesota. The History Channel wants to thank the McCones for their great hospitality and all their expertise. We're not allowed to endorse sites but you may want to know that the McCones offer a bed and breakfast experience in one of their sod houses, April through October. 507-723- 5138)
