The Gustav Rohrich Sod House was a

sod house The sod house or soddy was an often used alternative to the log cabin during frontier settlement of the Great Plains of Canada and the United States in the 1800s and early 1900s. Primarily used at first for animal shelters, corrals, and fences, ...

located in

Bellwood, Nebraska Bellwood is a village in Butler County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 435 at the 2010 census. History Bellwood was laid out in 1890 when the railroad was extended to that point. It was named for its founder, Jesse D. Bell. Geogr ...

, United States. It was built in 1883 on of land by Gustav Rohrich (1849–1938), an immigrant from

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, for himself, his wife and three children. Its walls are made of

sod Sod, also known as turf, is the upper layer of soil with the grass growing on it that is often harvested into rolls. In Australian and British English, sod is more commonly known as ''turf'', and the word "sod" is limited mainly to agricult ...

laid in blocks, grass side down, with each block approximately 2 to long, 12 to wide, and 3 to deep.

References

HABS/HAER entry, Library of Congress

Austrian-American history Buildings and structures in Butler County, Nebraska Houses in Nebraska Sod houses Houses completed in 1883 {{Nebraska-struct-stub