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In Which I Give You A (Brief) Tour Of A Prairie Sod House

Oct 30, 2018

I even tried to build one of these in my Illinois back yard when I was 10. "Little House on the Prairie" bored me to tears until On The Banks of Plum Creek when they actually lived in a house made of cut blocks of turf dug into the side of a hill. I never did forgive them for moving into a frame house, even though my "dug out" was small, dark and dirty like theirs. It felt snug. Even in the rain, though I suspect I would not have felt that way if if I had stayed in mine through any significant rain and tried to sleep with mud dripping on my head or in one room with 24 brothers and sisters. But still, the "Soddie" has a soft spot in my heart and I had just spent the weekend visiting a modern New Mexico version, an Earthship, and helping to rebuild a WOFATI at the Permies.com lab in Montana. So when I saw a rusty old sign for The Sod House Museum" just outside Gothenberg Nebraska I had to check it out. Alas the "museum" itself (a small pole barn that reviewer say is wonderful https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g45590-d123639-Reviews-or20-Sod_House_Museum-Gothenburg_Nebraska.html ) was closed and apparently for sale. Still the sod house is there in all its sagging glory, slowly returning to the earth. Check it out with me in this video. For more of its history check out this article. https://www.economist.com/moreover/2000/03/30/soddies-for-bodies Apparently this soddie was built to show tourists and isn't historical but it was good enough for me.

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By becoming a patron, you'll instantly unlock access to 15 exclusive posts
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Uncle Mud
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