This is just the beginning! Our collection holds over 300 years of history, including rare newspapers, obituaries, marriage records, birth records, and so much more—most of which you won’t find anywhere else!
This newspaper page contains 3 articles. Subscribers can read the full text of each article.
Newspaper
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Location
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States of America
Date
Jun 04, 2001
Page
22
Prairie settlers in Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas built sod houses due to scarce stone and wood. Grass roots held the dirt, allowing plants to sprout from walls each spring. Women mailed for flower seeds to plant on sod roots as homes, schools, and churches rose from earth.
A humorous note describes a cow appearing to stand on the roof but actually placed on a hill forming the back wall of a structure. The scene plays on visual illusion and rural humor.
The article explains sod house building by sodbusters using grass bricks cut with a grasshopper plow. It covers laying bricks in two layers lengthwise and one crosswise for stability, with openings for doors and windows, a ridgepole roof, sod on top, fat paper windows, and a doorway blanket. Neighbors donate a day to help, a week otherwise for a single room. An acre yields about one room of sod home.
We want people to find what they are looking for at NewspaperArchive. We are confident that we have the newspapers that will increase the value of your family history or other historical research. With our 7-day free trial, you can view the documents you find for free.
People find the most success using advanced search. Try plugging in keywords, names, dates, and locations, and get matched with results from the entire collection of newspapers at NewspaperArchive!
You can also successfully find newspapers by these browse options. Explore our archives on your own!
Browse by location and discover newspapers from all across the world.
Browse by date and find publications for a specific day or era.
Browse old newspaper publications to find specific newspapers.