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" was a corollary 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. 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" (600×300×150mm) long, 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.

In the United States, the terms of the Homestead Act offered free farmland to settlers who built a dwelling and cultivated the land for five years. Sod houses achieved none of the nostalgia that log cabins gained, probably because soddies were much more subject to dirt and infestations of insects. Early photographs record some sod houses; otherwise, they have all but disappeared from the landscape.

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

• Leffingwell Camp Site, Flaxman Island, Alaska, listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)
• Pioneer Sod House, Wheat Ridge, Colorado, NRHP-listed
• Minor Sod House, McDonald, Kansas, NRHP-listed
• Cottonwood Ranch, Sheridan County, Kansas; the NRHP-listed historic ranch site included a sod stable
• Heman Gibbs Farmstead, Falcon Heights, Minnesota; the NRHP-listed stie includes a replica of the original 1849 sod house
• Gustav Rohrich Sod House, Bellwood, Nebraska, NRHP-listed
• Wallace W. Waterman Sod House, Big Springs, Nebraska, NRHP-listed
• Jackson-Einspahr Sod House, Holstein, Nebraska, NRHP-listed
• Sod House (Cleo Springs, Oklahoma), also known as Marshall McCully Sod House, NRHP-listed
• Sod House Ranch, Burns, Oregon

See also

• Icelandic turf houses
• Burdei, a Ukrainian-inspired hybrid between the sod house and the log cabin, used in Western Canada
• Canadian Prairies
• Cob (building)
• Dugout (shelter)
• List of house styles
• Sod roof

References

Notes

External links

• Gibbs Museum Sod House