sod houses
Earthen frontier homes
Sod houses were dwellings built from strips of grass-covered earth, common on the American Great Plains in the late 1800s where timber was scarce.
Settlers cut thick slabs of prairie sod and stacked them like bricks.
The structures were cheap and well-insulated but prone to leaking, vermin, and eventual collapse.
Also called soddies.
- Great PlainsCentral North American grassland
- dugoutCarved-log canoe
- dirt floorBare ground as flooring
- thick wallsDense structural barriers
- prairieOpen grassy flatland
prairie grass · buffalo grass · homesteading · thermal mass · earth · roof · folk architecture · sodbusters · grass · Homestead Act · land rush · pioneer · walls · adobe · straw · timber · resource scarcity · arid climate
- frontierfrontier, pioneer, pioneers, settlers, settler
- frontier lifehomesteaders, farmer, homesteading, shepherd, pioneer women
- frontier historypioneers, settlers, homesteaders, frontier tales, westward expansion
- frontier relicsarrowheads, covered wagons, wagon wheels, log cabins, prairie homesteads
- Great PlainsGreat Plains, high plains, High Plains, grassland, grasslands
- Midwest historyChicago, Detroit, Great Lakes, Mississippi River, Ohio River
sod housesconcrete structures
Hardened cement-based constructions
glass towers · stone houses · brick houses · frame houses · log cabins
sod housesmansions
Large, stately houses
palaces · castles · manor houses · stately homes · plantation houses
sod housesskyscrapers
Extremely tall urban buildings
space stations · high-rises · smart homes · prefabricated homes · manufactured homes