42 Nebraskaland • April 2020
magine yourself as a pioneer living in a hole in the ground.
Now imagine that fl oodwater is rising toward the ceiling.
Welcome to rural Boone County in 1873.
The sod house is iconic of Nebraska's frontier period,
but many pioneers started out in an even simpler form of
housing – the dugout. Historian Everett Dick described how
to build one in his 1975 book Conquering the Great American
Desert. In short: dig a rectangular hole into a hillside or a
ravine. The open side should face east to catch the morning
light and so that snow will blow away from the door. Enclose
the open front with a wall of logs or sod. Leave a space for a
door; a window is optional. Roof the hole with "poles, brush,
hay, and earth."
Your house will be cheap, quickly built, cool in summer and
warm in winter. It will also be cramped, dark, dirty and full
of every critter in the ground. But it will do until you plant
your fi rst crop and have time to build a proper soddy or frame
house.
Depending on their location, dugouts had a more serious
drawback. Many settlers dug them into a high bank beside
a creek, where you had a steep slope plus water and timber
nearby.
A Dugout Flood
By David L. Bristow, History Nebraska
"Keeps Bachelors Hall," wrote photographer Solomon Butcher of these men near Ansley, Nebraska, in 1888. History Nebraska
RG2608-0-1397
I
