In addition to 75 activities, it helps readers explore history and think deeply about the Little House books. If you like understanding more about the world of Little House, consider my book The Laura Ingalls Wilder Companion: A Chapter-by-Chapter Guide (Chicago Review Press).

It feel more like a regular house-though not all 'soddies' had these luxuries. Plastered or wallpapered walls in the inside of the house made Sod houses and dugouts were warm in the winter and cool When they had time or enough money, they built a home from cut lumber like the Ingalls family.Ī house from dirt was better than no house at all. Often pioneers lived in a sod house or dugout for a short Visitors tour this sod house built by the Laura Ingalls Wilder Musum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota.Ĭourtesy of Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum, Walnut Grove, MN The Ingalls's sod house in Walnut Grove no longer stands, though visitors can visit this dugout when they visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum. This madeĪ dugout house like the Ingallses’ home on Plum Creek in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. The side of a hill and built some walls of sod bricks and added a roof. Instead of cutting sod bricks, they dug dirt out of

Some pioneer settlers used the prairie itself to build aĭifferent sort of house. What kind of sod house did the Ingalls family have? Building a house from sod bricks was hard workĪnd time consuming, but it didn’t cost anything.Ī public domain image of a sod house in Nebraska. Made of snow bricks, sod houses were a bit wider at the bottom so they could These houses’ walls curved instead of being straight up and down. The bricks blended together and formed sturdy walls. One brick could weigh about 50 pounds (23 kg). Many of the pioneer settlers made large, heavy bricks of So, many pioneers used what they had toīuild homes-sod! The sod included the top layer of soil and even the grass The land was great forįarming, but few trees grew there. They didn’t typically use stones or logs to do it. When people wanted to build their first house on the prairie, They made the best of the situation and even laughed when something

Surprise when they learned the house was underground! It was made entirely of He traded animals for the house and land. Please note: If you are reading this blog post in an email, you may not be able to see all images or click on links unless you go to the blog by clicking the title of today's blog post.įarm. At the beginning of the book, a covered wagon took Pa, Ma, Mary, Laura, and Carrie away from Indian Territory Many people today learned about sod houses when reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's On the Banks of Plum Creek.

Little house on plum creek