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Tuesday, November 27, 2018

This Sod House

Interior of one of the last remaining sod house located in The Badlands of South Dakota (author's photo)

I've always been fascinated by houses built in strange places or out of strange material. When I was in grade school a bunch of us got together daily in a vacant lot, and armed with shovels, we dug a large underground clubhouse. We carved tables and benches into the walls and hung out there every day...until the fire department came and caved in the whole thing before our horrified eyes (my father and grandfather were on the fire department, by the way).

Hence my interest in sod houses. Who and why would someone build a house out of sod?


In 1862 the Homestead Act was passed and so began the great Westward Expansion. For the cost of a filing fee, anyone could stake out 160 acres. All the new landowner had to do was farm and live on the land for five years and it was his or hers (By the way, twelve percent of homesteaders in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North and South Dakota were single women). People came from all over the world to grab their piece of America. What a deal! What could go wrong?

Homesteaders were to find Conditions on the prairies were extreme. Summers where the temperatures could reach 120 degrees. Winters so cold your livestock might die because their breath froze in their noses. Then there were the tornadoes, droughts, rain storms, and swarms of grasshoppers. Grass so tall mothers feared losing their children in the Sea of Grass.

And the treeless plains were not that giving. There was hardly a stick or stone to build a house, and did I mention the other requirement was that the homesteader had six months to build a house? What to do?
Early homesteaders followed the example of the Native Americans, who built their lodge houses out of sod. Special blades were fitted to plows to rip off the top layer of ground. The roots of the grasses were so deep, they made a loud ripping noise when pulled from the earth.

Living inside a cramped sod house and keeping clean must have been a challenge for these sisters 

The blocks of sod, called "Nebraska marble," were then cut into bricks to build walls. If the sod dried, it would crumble and be impossible to work with, so the homesteader could only dig up as much sod as he (or she) could work with. The moist bricks were stacked on one another so the roots continued to grow into the layer beneath it giving added strength to the structure. The typical dwelling constructed would be a simple one-room house.  A roof was made by layering branches, straw, and twigs across the top on which more sod was placed.

The sod proved a good insulator, keeping the house warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And a sod house was cheap, costing less than $5 to build. The area of bare earth left around the house once the sod was cleared acted as a protective shield, keeping varmints away from the dwelling.

The downside: the bare-earth practice kept some varmints outside the house, while bringing others in. There are stories of rattlesnakes coming out of their dens in the walls and heading up to the roof to sun themselves during the day. Mice, fleas, snakes, and insects, oh my! One woman "sodbuster" complained that there were so many rats around the house looking for corn, that she had to kick them out of the way each time she left the house.

And if insects and snakes falling on you weren't enough to put you off--and I'm put off at this point already--the sodbuster waged a constant war against dirt, because if you live in a house made of dirt....One settler complained she needed an umbrella in the house to keep dirt from falling on her while she prepared dinner. Canvas could be fixed across the ceiling to combat falling dirt, leaks, and insects. The floor was usually dirt as well, though the walls were often plastered or whitewashed. Sod houses required maintenance, and the threat of a roof collapsing was a reality.

Note in this old print the family taking their activities outside of the house

Windows could be installed for an expense, but the sod house was generally a dark, cramped space. Any activity such as sewing, socializing, or other tasks that could be taken outside, were. There wasn't much room for furniture, and so much like my childhood underground fort, tables and beds were carved into the walls.
Typically, a house made out of sod was seen as a temporary residence. Maybe a family would live in the one room "soddy" for seven years or so until they were able to gather together enough funds to build a wood frame house. But it could be made more habitable by adding wood slats for flooring and papering the walls.

Making a sod house a home by adding windows and papering walls

As cozy as the above picture is, I don't think it represents the norm. Scratching together a day to day existence as a homesteader must have been hard beyond anything most of us today can imagine: the isolation, the grueling work, battling the elements to only face the random follies of nature such as losing your crops to a swarm of grasshoppers as you sit in the comfort of your leaky, varmint-infested sod house.

Less than half the homesteaders withstood the test. I don't know if I would've made it, but it's hard to pit the modern me against a me that had been raised without the comforts I enjoy today. Still, I like to think I would have been one of the success stories. There are some cheerful accounts from optimistic sodbusters, and I wonder at their resilience.

So, what do you think? How would you and your family have fared living in a sod house?

16 comments:

  1. Aaargh! You lost me at the rattlesnakes coming out of the walls and sunning themselves on the roof. I'm obviously getting soft in my old age.

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    1. I think the isolation and the cold would've gotten me. I can't imagine the dawn to dusk toil day after day with no wine! Thanks for stopping by!

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  2. I was born in the NC mountains and have a vague memory of when there where no electric wires in the area. I was starting school and the day I came home and saw the lights in every room burning was an an exciting day for the entire family. We did have a well-built house, no snakes or bugs coming in. I admire those sodbusters, and maybe I could have survived if I didn't know there was am easier way. I couldn't do it now. I've grown too old and too soft. Loved the post. Thanks, Patti.

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  3. Hi, Agnes!That's an amazing story! Technology has advanced in leaps and bounds just in the past few decades alone. We forget how close we are to the days of no electricity. I don't see being a sodhouse success story! When we went out west last fall I did develop a new appreciation for the families who toughed it out. Nice to hear from you!

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  4. I can't imagine ... those women were hardy souls!!

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    1. It is hard to fathom! Every challenge you face today times a thousand! Cooking, washing, taking care of children...on top of trying to survive. I do think many of them didn't know what they were getting into until they were in it. Thanks for stopping by, Kristy!

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  5. Know I couldn't do it, but thank you for this insight. My grandmother had 4 older siblings born in sod houses in NE and KS before her parents returned to ME.

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    1. Hi, Diana! I love hearing from people with personal family history like yours.And how about those single woman back then homesteading. Pretty amazing.

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  6. Interesting that you kids decided to go under ground instead of in a tree. So you think your own relatives in the fire department got rid of the place? Wonder why? Did I miss something?

    I've heard sod houses had a problem with creatures crawling in the walls. EEK! I was amazed at the part where you said they dressed up the place with boards on the floor and wall paper. How did they get wallpaper to stick to the dirt walls? Are the windows just in the front part of the sod house?

    Enjoyed reading your blog, Patti. All the best to you.

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    1. Hi, Sarah, thanks for your kind wishes. The fire department quite rightly thought our underground clubhouse was dangerous. Among other things it could've caved in on us ( I remember it being pretty big).
      In the sod house we visited, the original structure where the kitchen was was dark and "earthy", but there was a later addition with a living room and it was bright with windows and wallpapered and you wouldn't know it was a sod house from inside.
      I imagine windows were an expensive luxury and as the sod houses in the states were meant to be temporary, I don't guess the builders would spend much time on the windows.
      Thanks for stopping by!

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  7. Patti,

    My maternal grandparents moved from Lamonie, Iowa to Fort Morgan, Colorado in the 1920s. Their first house on the new property was a shack thrown together to keep off the elements while they built a barn for the milk cows, a couple of pigs, and the chickens. The barn was a half-sod house. The back half was dug into a dirt bank and the front came out with a regular wooden frame and peaked/shingled roof. The barn was so well made and so well insulated that they put real glass windows in the front, added two sturdy doors, and move in. lol They did fix up the shack for the cows and later built a nice chicken house, brooder house, and hog house. I grew up just down the road from these grandparents and I spent a good share of my growing up years staying in that barn-house.

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    1. As always, Kaye I find our family history interesting! One form of sod house was as you describe: digging into an existing bank of earth.
      One of my take-aways from our trip out west last year was how much the settlers had to endure and my hats off to the family who managed to put down roots.

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  8. I remember coming to the farm when I was five....no electricity, no indoor plumbing, and the exterior was unpainted, looking like a brown shack but at least it wasn't a soddie. I had my heroine describe living in a soddie and how a rainstorm blew in for an hour but it dripped mud for three days. And please, the horrors of snakes falling from the roof. Nope, I would not have survived. I'd have been running across the prairie screaming insane. I have nothing but awe and admiration for the pioneers of the prairies. Thanks for an excellent article, Patti.

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  9. Thanks, Elizabeth. The day we visited the soddy in the Badlands it was a beautiful fall day. But I did stand back and wonder what it would be like in the rain or snow out there in the open plain. I bet winter or stormy days were loooong and dismal.That's what would've gotten to me. I did read accounts of the miseries of being in a sod house during a rain storm. No thank you! I have to go to the grocery store today and I'm out off because I have to brush a bit of snow off my car!

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  10. I can see how it was necessary, but I don't think I would have done well. Still a very fascinating look at something we all hear of, but don't necessarily really understand. Thank you. Doris

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  11. Ohhh!!! All this is so intriguing!! It's so easy to gloss over words on pages, oh yeah, they lived in a sod house, but when you really pause and imagine and think it through... Omgoodness! They were some amazingly strong and determined people. One of my favorite books has the couple arriving on Montana and living in a soddy for a while (even had to exterminate the rats that had taken residence before they could move in), and the hero's promises to build her a bigger, better house.. But yet that soddy came to mean alot as lots of precious memories and healing took place there. Guess love (can) grows best in little houses. Haha! Love the pics and the fact there's still at least one remaining.

    But for me? If that was my reality, I'd push through. Or I'd like to think so. But since it isn't, I'll pass. I think I'd like to try a teepee though!

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