Show log cabin soddy or house of sf stone one all have been home sweet home celebration of better homes week recalls evolution of american houses from the days when the pioneers cabin was both a dwelling place and a fortress down to houses of the present with their groat great variety of architecture and Duil building ding materials 0 western newspaper union by E ELMO 1510 SCOTT WATSON the multifarious weeks wo we nrc are called up upon on to observe each year Is one that is associated with an all idea very dear to the hearts of all americans that is better homes hoines week april 24 to 30 for wo we americans give to the word home a sentimental attachment which we bestow upon no other word with tile the possible exception of mother homo sweet home and my old kentucky home and old folks nt at home are still among our best beloved folk songs and tin pan alley knows that the chances are better than 50 50 for writing a sure firc hit if it can got get home in the title of a new song or build tile the theme of it around that word has any popular song of recent years showed greater promise of enduring permanently than billy hills home on the range yes wo we americans love our homes even though wo we are sometimes called the most restless people on earth carth who in these days of the automobile and the hard road seem to spend as little time as possible in them not always thus of course as a glance back W AV T IT ast d e A typical log cabin home of 0 tile the early american pioneers building log cabins in which to spend P end their vacations ernest thompson once wrote a magazine article in which he told how a group of men joined together to do that of the I 1 result ho he said and what had we got something out of tho the woods conquered out of the woods by ourselves a mixture of nature and human enthusiasm thusia sm a something which we could not but love for it was a part of ourselves we had contacted the wild woods at almost every point without any intermediary me diary when the frontier had been pushed beyond tho the forest clad lands east of the mississippi and began spreading across the great plains of tho the west the pioneer had a now new homebuilding home building problem timber was scarce and what there was mostly cotton w wooi 0 od and elm aim made poor lum V mhd I 1 soddy I 1 frontier home on the great plains of the west through our history will show it if as one of our popular modern writers of verse says it takes takei a heap 0 livin to make a house a home then we had real homes back in the days when our pio pioneering 9 forefathers lived in log cabins for they certainly did a heap ol 01 0 livin in houses of that kind not only was it a place of rest for the pioneer after a hard days work clearing the forest but it was also algo his bulwark of defense against one of the most redoubtable toes foes in history the indian warrior truly the log cabin was tile the american pioneers castle in a more literal sense than sir ed ward poke coke the famous english jurist of the sixteenth century could coul dever ever have realized when he declared that a mans house is his castle for the story of the american frontier is a saga of the stouthearted stout hearted men and women who lived in this combined home and fortress against whose thick walls the tides of savage hatred beat in vain by the middle of the nineteenth century the log cabin had become a symbol of american democracy kocl mo cracy acy it with its allied symbols of frontier life the coonskin and hard cider helped send william henry harrison to the white house and long after the frontier era had passed one of the surest ways for a candidate for office to appeal successfully to the electorate was to emphasize the fact act that tha t he was born in a log c cabin a aln even in these modern da days ys memories of the log cabin era survive in our everyday speech when you invite someone to visit you do you assure assum him that he I 1 will always find the latchstring out your log cabin dwelling grandfather father used that term and he meant that a buckskin thong pushed through a hole in the stout oak door of his home would be hanging down outside when the visitor pulled the string it lifted the latch a bar of wood from its slot so that he could push the door open and walk in although that era is long past it does not m mean can that it if is forgotten significant of the fact that americans still cherish th the log cabin as the symbol of a way of life that was somehow freer and happier than the one they know in this machine age is the nostalgic attempt by many man y of hem to recapture the past by ber for it warped and twisted while drying in the sun so with characteristic versatility he turned to the only material avail I 1 able and made it serve his purpose thus came into being tile the type of pioneer home known as the sod house or soddy selecting a likely site for his now new home he hitched his yoke of oxen to a prairie breaking plow the only implement that could cut through the tough sod with its interlaced roots of grass and prairie plants setting his plow to a depth of about three inches he ran a long straight furrow as near to the location of his soddy as possible so that he would not have the task of moving his building materials so far strips of sod a foot wide and three feet long were then brought to the site of the new house and the building begun after the dimensions of the house had been r Z t abw MM I 1 21 f q V 1 I le t Z M all a 4 41 A TW courtesy federal couslar A modern low cost american home decided upon the ground was smoothed off so that a space was left for the walls which were two feet or more thick the growing grass was left on the sod and this formed the chinks be tween the layers so that it was not necessary to chink up tip the spaces between the layers of sod the walls were built up t to 0 a height of sev seven en or eight feet openings opening s being left for the windows and doors which were recessed into them the walls for a distance of a foot or more after the walls were completed a ridgepole was secured it was usually n native tree with other smaller trees or branches to bo be us used ed for rafters or supporters brush was thrown over this then a layer of prairie hay or straw after which aich the sod roof was put on oil the layers being leveled oh off and chinked up so chrit not a drop of water entered doors and windows were then made by tile the homesteader from native lumber or from the boxes F few ow of the first coddles had glass glas in their windows oiled paper or muslin was used instead tile tho soddy was now ready for the pioneer and his family to livo live in in many instances to make it more attractive a coat of whitewash was given the inside walls it was made from native lime which he secured from the hills along the river and burned himself most of the pioneer sort sod dies had no wood floors the floors being made of clay which was dampened and tamped camped down until it was smooth and even with its walls two feet thick and its root roof from eight inches t to 0 a foot thick the soddy made a comfortable home for the pioneer family warm in the winter when one of those terrible blizzards swept across the plains and cool in the summer when the hot sun beat down upon it from a cloudless sky and blistering winds s swept w ept over it and like the log cabin of his eastern forefathers it was a veritable fortress which could resist indian attack especially when its defenders were armed with those straight shoot ing kentucky long rifles or heavy sharps buffalo guns with the passing of ahe he frontier era on the plains the pioneers and the sons and daughters of the pioneers who no longer needed to live in these comb combination lna homes and prairie fortresses began building houses of wood s tone and brick similar to those in the east americans today east and west and north and south live in houses as varied in architecture as this broad land of ours is varied in its soil its climate and its traditions while one style may predominate in one section of a country you are quite likely to find examples of it anywhere in the united states a new england type in Call california for a so southern U th e rn colonial in minnesota a spanish type in massachusetts chu with the growth of our cities came new housing problems and out of them were evolved apartment buildings with many families living under one roof but are signs that the tide which sw swept ept increasing numbers of people into the cities and produced congested centers of population is now beginning to ebb and to carry some of these numbers out into the suburbs and into the smaller towns more and more americans are beginning to want to live in their own homes individual houses with yards and gardens and elbowroom and with that desire is coming the desire expressed in the week we celebrate from april 24 to SO 30 the desire for better homes |