Sod house

The sod house or soddy was a common alternative to the log cabin during frontier settlement of the Great Plains of North America in the 19th century and the early 20th century. Primarily used at first for animal shelters, corrals, and fences, they came into use also to house humans, for the prairie often lacked standard building materials such as wood or stone, while sod from thickly rooted prairie grass was abundant and free and could be used for house construction. 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. 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 was 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 is a variety of designs, including a type built by Mennonites in Prussia, Russia, and Canada called a semlin and another in Alaska known as a barabara.