Gibbs Museum of Pioneer and Dakotah Life - Sod House

Sod House

After buying the land in 1849, Jane and Heman Gibbs built a small, one-room, dug-out sod house where they lived for 5 years while farming the land. The house was 10'x12' and built with logs and featured a sod roof. This design kept the house well insulated in the winter and cool in the summer.

The original location was next to the farm house and was excavated in 1995. Now a replica built from the architectural investigation stands in the prairie.

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Famous quotes containing the words sod and/or house:

    There grew pied wind-flowers and violets,
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    The constellated flower that never sets;
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    The sod scarce heaved; and that tall flower that wets
    Its mother’s face with heaven-collected tears,
    When the low wind, its playmate’s voice, it hears.
    Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

    Ah, yet, ere I descend to the grave,
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    And since love ne’er will from me flee,
    A mistress moderately fair,
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    Only beloved and loving me.
    Abraham Cowley (1618–1667)