Sod House

Sod House. . , "I looked on the ground and I said, this is free ground. Then I looked on the heavens, and I said, they is free and beautiful heavens. Then looked within my heart, and I say to myself, I wonder why I never was free before?" , John Solomon Lewis, Boston Traveler, June 10, 1879 , Starting a farm or ranch in the West offered the promise of freedom and permanence to many families. In the South after the Civil War, black Americans still faced widespread discrimination. In 1879, groups of black families organized an "Exodus" to set up new homes on the Plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado. With few trees available, homesteaders, including the "Exodusters," built houses out of sod. Sod is a cut rectangle of grass and dirt that can be used like a brick to build. Sometimes these houses, or "soddies" were built into the side of hills. They had dirt floors, dirt walls and dirt roofs. Railroads eventually brought building materials like lumber or stone to replace sod houses.