As settlers traveled across the Great Plains, they turned to the ground beneath their feet to build roofs over their heads. The story of sod houses...

Once westering pioneers reached their destination, they had to build homes. Those homes reflected the available natural resources of the land. In forested areas, log homes were popular. Some areas in rocky terrain used stones. Some in the Southwest, where clay was plentiful, used adobe. On the Great Plains, sod houses, called “soddies,” were the most common abodes. (There were some wealthier settlers who brought pre-cut timber cabin kits with them offered through the Sears & Roebuck catalog…

Want to learn how to build a cheap house? Look no further. Let me ask you; how would your life change if you never had to pay rent or interest on a

In the early 1800s a man named Little Jon lived in this so called earth cabin (swe. ‘backstuga’) located in southern Småland, Sweden. An earthen cabin is built partially buried in the ground, in this case there’s three walls of stone and one wall made of wood.

The concept of rendezvous involved fur supply brigades taking goods to the mountain country where the trappers lived and trapped beaver. But there also were places established during the era that were fixed-site posts. The Bordeaux Post, originally operated from 1837 to 1876, is one of them, located at the Museum of the Fur Trade on the east side of Chadron.

Download scientific diagram | ‘A Pioneer Home’. A Nebraska sod house, c.1907. (Collection of Leonard A. Lauder.) from publication: As we were: American photographic postcards, 1905–1930 Beauty and the beast: Human-animal relations as revealed in real photo postcards, 1905–1935 Folk photography: The American real photo postcard, 1905–1930 Real photo postcard guide: The people's photography Real photo postcards: Unbelievable images from the collection of Harvey Tulcensky | BEAST, Beauty and…

Homesteaders and settlers on the treeless plains of 19th century American territories were challenged to build homes without the wood construction techniques used in the northeastern United States. Understanding how settlers adapted to the environment of the plains can best be demonstrated by allowing children to construct their own "soddies" from readily available materials. Photographs and letters of the period can be referred to for crafting structures that simulate the difficulties of…