Sod house

A sod house in the American prairie, 1901

A sod farm structure in Iceland

Saskatchewan sod house, circa 1900

Interior of a sod house, North Dakota, 1937

The sod house or "soddy"^[1] was a successor to the log cabin during frontier settlement of Canada and the United States. The prairie lacked standard building materials such as wood or stone; however, sod from thickly-rooted prairie grass was abundant.^[2] Prairie grass had a much thicker, tougher root structure than modern landscaping grass.

Construction of a sod house involved cutting patches of sod in rectangles, often 2'×1'×6" (60×30×15 cm), and piling them into walls. Builders employed a variety of roofing methods. Sod houses accommodate normal doors and windows. The resulting structure was a well-insulated but damp dwelling that was very inexpensive. Sod houses required frequent maintenance and were vulnerable to rain damage. Stucco or wood panels often protected the outer walls. Canvas or plaster often lined the interior walls.

Notable sod houses

Sod houses that are individually notable and historic sites that include one or more sod houses or other sod structures include:

Iceland

Skagafjordur Folk Museum, Turf/Sod houses of the burstabær style in Glaumbær
Arbaer Folk Museum

Canada

Addison Sod House, a Canadian National Historic Landmark building, in Saskatchewan
L'Anse aux Meadows, the site of the pioneering 10th-11th century CE Norse settlement near the northern tip of Newfoundland, has reconstructions of eight sod houses in their original locations, used for various purposes when built by Norse settlers there a millennium ago

United States

Cottonwood Ranch, Sheridan County, Kansas. The ranch site, listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), included a sod stable
Dowse Sod House, near Comstock, Nebraska; NRHP-listed and operated as museum
Heman Gibbs Farmstead, Falcon Heights, Minnesota; the NRHP-listed site includes a replica of the original 1849 sod house
Jackson-Einspahr Sod House, Holstein, Nebraska, NRHP-listed
Leffingwell Camp Site, Flaxman Island, Alaska, listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)
Minor Sod House, McDonald, Kansas, NRHP-listed
Pioneer Sod House, Wheat Ridge, Colorado, NRHP-listed
Gustav Rohrich Sod House, Bellwood, Nebraska, NRHP-listed
Sod House (Cleo Springs, Oklahoma), also known as Marshall McCully Sod House, NRHP-listed
Sod House Ranch, Burns, Oregon, (does not include a sod house)
Wallace W. Waterman Sod House, Big Springs, Nebraska, NRHP-listed

References

↑ Blevins, Win. Dictionary of the American West. Fort Worth: TCU Press, 2008. Soddy. ISBN 0875654835
↑ Sod Houses Forest Preserve District of Cook County (Illinois)

Two books by Solomon D. Butcher (1856–1927), Nebraska photographer of the homestead era, whose works include over 1,000 photos of sod houses: Pioneer History of Custer County and Short Sketches of Early Days in Nebraska (1901), and Sod Houses, or the Development of the Great American Plains (1904)

Architecture of the United States
Colonial	American colonial architecture Colonial Georgian Dutch Colonial French Colonial German Colonial Spanish Colonial
Early Republic	Adam Federal Jeffersonian
Mid-19th century	Greek Revival Italianate Gothic Revival
Victorian	Richardsonian Romanesque Second Empire American Renaissance Folk Stick style Queen Anne Shingle Territorial
Late-19th to mid-20th century	Beaux-Arts Chicago School Colonial Revival Dutch Colonial Revival Mediterranean Revival Mission Revival Spanish Colonial Revival Tudor Revival Pueblo Revival Territorial Revival American Craftsman Prairie School American Foursquare California bungalow Art Deco Streamline Moderne PWA Moderne
Post-World War II to current	International style Usonian American ranch Modern Postmodern Neo-eclectic New Classical Architecture
Vernacular	Hall and parlor house Central-passage house Log cabin Cape Cod Saltbox Creole cottage Dogtrot house I-house Shotgun house Sod house Carpenter Gothic First Period

Hut dwelling designs and semi-permanent human shelters
Traditional immobile	Barabara Beehive house Bothy Burdei Bure Cleit Clochán Dugout Earth lodge Goahti Hogan Humpy Icelandic turf house Igloo Jacal Log cabin Maloca Mitato Musgum mud huts Nipa hut Oca Orri Palloza Pit-house Qargi Qarmaq Quiggly hole Quinzhee Rondavel Roundhouse Ruka Sassi di Matera Shieling Sukkah Tongkonan Trullo Wigwam, wickiup and wetu Zemlyanka
Traditional mobile	Chum Nomadic tents Shepherd's hut Tipi Yaranga Yurt and ger Ger district
Open-air	Beach fale Cabana Chickee Gazebo Palapa Pergola Ramada
Modern	Beach hut Hopper hut Iris hut Nissen hut Quonset hut Jamesway hut Romney hut Rondavel Slab hut Weatherport hut Wilderness hut Alpine club hut Mountain hut Winter room
Named huts	Bill Putnam hut Charit Creek Lodge Cootapatamba Hut Daveys Hut Granite Park Chalet Geehi Hut High Huts of the White Mountains High Sierra Camps Horse Camp Keebles Hut LeConte Lodge Len Foote Hike Inn Narcissus Hut New Pelion Hut Phantom Ranch Old Pelion Hut Seaman's Hut Sperry Chalet
Related topics	Cabanes du Breuil Circular linhay Earth sheltering Shack Shed Skellig Michael Stilt house Tent Thatching Transhumance Tree house Vernacular architecture Village des Bories
Category Commons Portal

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.

Sod house

Notable sod houses

See also

References

Further reading