Pioneer Farming Internet Resources

Sod Homes

Weather on the Frontier
Rain, Snow, Snakes, & the Roof Leaks

Sod Homes: Be It Ever So Humble

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Frontier Girl

Settlement of the Tallgrass Prairie

Drawing of Sod House

What kind of house would you have lived in?

Settling the Land
550 images from the Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection

Sod Houses and Social Structures

Photos: Pioneer family beside their sod home

Log Homes

Life in a Log Home
A reprint of an article in Annuals of Iowa The author summarizes the living conditions and problems faced by early Iowa settlers who built and lived in log cabins.

Pioneering at Bonaparte and Near Pella
In 1843, Mrs. Sarah Welch Nossaman and her husband moved from the area of Fairfield, Iowa to a claim of land in central Iowa. They settled near the present-day town of Pella. This land had just opened for settlement and many pioneer families began moving into the area. The Nossaman family built a log home after living temporarily in a shanty they built from poles and elm bark.

Writing to her children, Mrs. Nossaman described the first summer in the new claim.