McCone Sod House

The McCone Sodhouses are just outside of Sanborne, Minnesota, just a mile or so off of Highway 14. Sometimes information about it will say it’s in Sanborne, but that’s deceptive (trust me Vicki Hughes and I drove all over Sanborne looking for it the first time). It was only AFTER we gave up and headed on towards 14 that we met the first of their very clear signs that take you there one of two ways – you can complete either side of the square. Be warned you will have to drive on gravel part of the way. They have built sod houses using a sod cutter and are the best recreated soddies that I’ve seen. (Modern sod cutters are designed for cutting sod for lawns and are very thin, to leave plenty of dirt still at the turf farm. Real cutters make much larger sod bricks.) My only quibble is they try to call one soddy a dugout because it has about a foot of dirt surrounding the walls on the backside. A dugout is completely buried into the hill.  See a great example at the Ingalls Homestead in De Smet, South Dakota.

Sod Cutter

Other than that, it’s very well done and was even featured on a History Channel special called Frontier Homes (which is available for purchase). Visiting you learn a lot about how sod houses were really put together and what it’s like to live in one. You can just tour (which is what I’ve always done) or you can spend the night in one as a bed and breakfast. [Edited to add: Unfortunately, the McCones have stopped taking reservations for overnight guests.] I have never done that because of two words – sod outhouse. However, if you want to immerse yourself in a near prairie experience, make a reservation. It’s always busiest around the pageant, so you might want to look ahead to next year now if you’re planning it.

Sarah S. Uthoff blogs at TrundleBed Tales; look for her on Twitter and YouTube.