A sod farm structure in IcelandSaskatchewan sod house, circa 1900Unusually well appointed interior of a sod house, North Dakota, 1937
The sod house or soddy[1] was an often used alternative to the log cabin during frontier settlement of the Great Plains of Canada and the United States in the 1800s and early 1900s.[2] Primarily used at first for animal shelters, corrals, and fences, if the prairie lacked standard building materials such as wood or stone, sod from thickly-rooted prairie grass was abundant, free, and could be used for house construction.[2] Prairie grass has a much thicker, tougher root structure than a modern lawn.
Construction of a sod house involved cutting patches of sod in triangles and piling them into walls. Builders employed a variety of roofing methods.[3] Sod houses accommodated normal doors and windows. The resulting structure featured less expensive materials, and was quicker to build than a wood-frame house, but required frequent maintenance and were often vulnerable to rain damage, especially if the roof was also primarily of sod. Stucco was sometimes used to protect the outer walls. Canvas or stucco often lined the interior walls. There are a variety of designs, including a type built by Mennonites in Prussia, Russia, and Canada called a semlin,[4] and a variety in Alaska known as a barabara.
^Blevins, Win. Dictionary of the American West. Fort Worth: TCU Press, 2008. Soddy. ISBN 0875654835
^ ab"Addison Sod House". Parks Canada. Retrieved 20 February 2023.
^"Living in a Sod House". Nebraska Studies. Retrieved 20 February 2023.
^"To Build a Village - Semlin". Mennonite Heritage Village. 25 March 2021. Retrieved 20 February 2023.
The sodhouse or soddy was an often used alternative to the log cabin during frontier settlement of the Great Plains of Canada and the United States in...
settlers in the Great Plains used sod bricks to build entire sodhouses. This was effective because the prairie sod of the Great Plains was so dense and...
The William R. Dowse House, more commonly known as the Dowse SodHouse, is a sodhouse in Custer County in the central portion of the state of Nebraska...
examples. Wattle and daub houses use a "wattle" of poles interwoven with sticks to provide stability for mud walls. Sodhouses were built on the northwest...
A sod roof, or turf roof, is a traditional Scandinavian type of green roof covered with sod on top of several layers of birch bark on gently sloping wooden...
continents and of many styles, partially sunken into the ground. Rammed earth Sodhouse Earthbag home Souterrain: an earthen dwelling typically deriving from...
surviving Sodder family believed for the rest of their lives that the five missing children survived. The Sodders never rebuilt the house, instead converting...
The SodHouse Ranch is a historic ranch in Harney County in southeastern Oregon, United States. The remaining ranch structures are located south of Malheur...
(Romanian: bordei, Ukrainian: бурдей) is a type of pit-house or half-dugout shelter, somewhat between a sodhouse and a log cabin. This style is native to the Carpathian...
Addison SodHouse is a Saskatchewan homestead site made of grass or sod which is over a hundred years old and has been designated as a National Historic...
civilizations.[citation needed] Examples in England are the garden houses at Montacute House in Somerset. The gazebo at Elton on the Hill in Nottinghamshire...
related to Turf houses in Iceland. Sodhouse Earth lodge Earth shelter – House partially or entirely surrounded by earth "The Turf House Tradition". Iceland's...
shepherds, now may be a stone building. Common in Scotland. Sodhouse – a pioneer house type on the American Plains where wood was scarce. Sukkah – Israel...
Gibbs Farm features an original farmhouse, barn, and school house, as well as a replica sodhouse, bark lodge, and tipi with replica Dakotah furniture, clothing...
Groundbreaking, also known as cutting, sod-cutting, turning the first sod, turf-cutting, or a sod-turning ceremony, is a traditional ceremony in many cultures...
also: Barabara).[citation needed] When Europeans colonized North America, sodhouses ("soddies") were common on the Great Plains. In China, man-made cave dwellings...
Over 3,000 of his negatives survive; more than 1,000 of these depict sodhouses. Butcher wrote two books incorporating his photographs: Pioneer History...
(Charles and Delia Deetz) who unwittingly become co-owners of a haunted house. To highlight this couple's status as boors, director Tim Burton cast Dick...
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