Sod houses were intended to provide a temporary shelter while settlers established a more substantial residence. Although the term “sod house” is primarily associated with Canadian and American structures built during westward expansion, the structures found their architectural roots in Indigenous and Norse practices. Melvena Thurman Heisch, "The Soddy," in Of the Earth: Oklahoma Architectural History, ed. The resulting structure featured less expensive materials, and was quicker to build than a wood frame house. The early settlers used buffalo and cow-droppings, referred to as "chips," for fuel. Sod is the top layer of earth, or turf, that includes grass, its roots, and the dirt clinging to the roots. American Homesteaders moved to the prairies and also used earthen material to build the rectangular shaped Sod House. As elsewhere on the Great Plains, timber was scarce in central and western Oklahoma Territory. The Earth Lodge vs the Sod House - The 'Sodbusters' In the absence of wood and stone the homesteading settlers turned to the Native American Indian technique of building using earthen material. Two days later Roberts delivered his man to the deputy sheriff who had charge of the sod-house jail in the little town. Know your HNGs from your FWBs? No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain. A famous and substantial example of Canadian sod houses is the Addison Sod House in, , built between 1909 and 1911. Construction of a sod house involved cutting patches of sod in rectangles, often 2 ft × 1 ft × 0.5 ft (61.0 cm × 30.5 cm × 15.2 cm), and piling them into walls. The ground had been frozen for five months, so sod-house building had been temporarily abandoned. Sod houses were the first dwellings for many pioneers. Each morning just enough sod was broken and cut into blocks for use that day, because the sod blocks were easier to handle when the moisture content was high. Everett Dick, The Sod House Frontier, 1854–1890 (New York: D. Appleton Century Co., 1937). Online dating has made acronyms more inscrutable—and more fun—than ever. The sod house or soddy was an often used alternative to the log cabin during frontier settlement of the Great Plains of Canada and the United States. Sod refers to grass and the soil beneath it that is held together by the grass’s roots. Please tell us where you read or heard it (including the quote, if possible). Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free! Sod bricks quickly dried, cracked, and crumbled if not used immediately. Furnishings were sparse and simple, but prized lace curtains or an heirloom piece of furniture were not uncommon in these humble dwellings. Why Do “Left” And “Right” Mean Liberal And Conservative? Interior walls were often finished with plaster or covered with newspapers, and canvas was often suspended from the ceiling to make the space lighter and to improve cleanliness. Doors were commonly made of three or four planks joined by several crossbars. Since heavily wooded areas on the Prairies were scarce, and settlers lacked the infrastructure to build their traditional style of home, they explored alternative construction methods. The program was heavily advertised by the Canadian government, seeking to people the “Last Best West.” The Act was modeled on the American Homestead Act of 1862. A typical sod house (soddy) was about fourteen feet by sixteen feet in size with a seven-and-one-half-foot-high wall, a low-pitched roof, a central side door, and one or two windows. Finally, the builder filled the gable ends with sod blocks, hung a plank door, and enclosed the window openings, often with oiled paper. You must — there are over 200,000 words in our free online dictionary, but you are looking for one that’s only in the Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary. There are only a few written accounts describing the process of building a soddy. Definition of sod house in the Definitions.net dictionary. The process of making the earth bricks was made easier by the use of a lightweight steel "breaking" or "grasshopper" plow. But for the homesteaders who stuck it out eventually raised crops that enabled them to build better timber homes and the sod house was used as a barn. The water was stored in a large barrel, near the front of the sod house. Then the interior wall surface was scraped to provide a more attractive surface and to help insure a finished wall that was as vertical as possible. The Homesteaders were unfamiliar with earthen construction and initially experienced great difficulty in building good-quality houses. They were considered cold season dwellings, along with napaqtaq and kadjigi (also built with driftwood and sod) and iglu (built with snow). Whitewashing somewhat alleviated the damp conditions inside. The sod, turned by the plow and held together by roots, was lifted in strips and usually cut in 3-ft (1-m) lengths (sods). Builders employed a variety of roofing methods. The building site on the prairie was first cleared and leveled with a sharp spade prior to building up the walls. The average house was around 432 square feet (about 40 m2), the minimum size required under homesteading law (see Dominion Lands Act). (See also Homesteading.). Definition: A Sod House is a rectangular dwelling with walls built of sod or turf bricks, laid in horizontal layers with small windows, and a roof covered with earthen sods or thatch. Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). “Epidemic” vs. “Pandemic” vs. “Endemic”: What Do These Terms Mean? Sod House In the early frontier days of the U.S., there was a need for homes for the families who were settling in the West. Although most sod houses were temporary structures that eventually degraded, the Addison Sod House was built with a wooden roof and ingenious variants on established sod construction methods, which has helped it survive to the present. The interior walls might be covered by paper or cloth, or plastered with a clay mixture and whitewashed.

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