Editor's Note: This is part of a monthly series of stories by the Community History Writers, a group of area individuals committed to documenting and writing about local history and the people, places and happenings that created the various communities within Morgan County. This volunteer group first came together to create, "Morgan County: A Land of Immigrants," a booklet detailing the area's immigration history; copies are available at Fort Morgan Library & Museum, among other places.
A unique two-story sod house once stood on the Eastern Plains of Colorado southwest of Orchard, not far from the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. And as long as it stood there, it served as a monument to the early pioneers' imagination, their industriousness and their ability to adjust and to innovate.
The utility of, or the need for, the early sod houses is closely linked to the Homestead Era, as it played out to open and settle the American West.
Beginning in 1862 by virtue of a series of Homestead Acts, a citizen could become the owner of a tract of federal land by obtaining and "proving up" on a Homestead Application.
One of the several legal requisites of "proving up" and obtaining title was the requirement that a habitable house be built on the land.
Persons interested in Homesteading had to first file their intentions at the nearest Land Office. A brief check for previous ownership claims was made for the plot of land to be claimed, usually described by its survey coordinates.
The prospective homesteader paid a filing fee of $10 to claim the land temporarily, as well as a $2 commission to the land agent.
With the application and receipt in hand, the homesteader returned to the land to begin the process of building a home and working the land, as requirements for "proving up" at the end of five years.
When the time had passed and all requirements had been completed, the homesteader was ready, finally, to take legal possession.
The homesteader then found two neighbors or friends willing to vouch for the truth of his or her statements about the land's improvements and sign the "proof" document.
Upon completion of this final form and payment of a $6 fee, the homesteader received and recorded the Patent for the land, signed with the name of the current president of the United States. The Land Patent was often proudly displayed within the house to attest to the hard work and determination of the owners.
For obvious reasons, the homesteaders of the grasslands of the Great Plains had difficulty finding wood with which to build their houses or any other heir shed or other shelter, and without that ready supply of wood, they simply had to find a new way to build. About the only resource the grass lands offered as a building material was an abundance of earth and clay and the prairie vegetation itself, and their use resulted in the "Soddies" or sod houses of the plains.
A sod house was built using "bricks" made from the soil of the grass lands. The land or sod was plowed into 1-foot sections to the depth of 6 inches so that the section contained nearly all of the grasses' root systems. The root systems gave the sod its strength.
The individual sections were left to dry and become hard. This was a process called "seasoning."
The treated brick-like sections were then stacked side by side and one on top of the other to lay up thick walls, which were then plastered on both sides to protect and maintain the structure and, it is said, to "keep rats out," according to George Stoll. Usually wood doors and windows were installed.
These sod houses required very little in the way of wood or lumber, and a "soddie" provided a warm dwelling in the winter and a cool one in the summer.
Colorado's only two-story sod house was built near Orchard in the early 1890s. William Stoll was both the architect and builder, according to Robert Stoll, grandson of William.
William Stoll, was a cattle rancher, and the first resident to homestead the land upon which the home was built. The Stoll family children were born and grew up in this so-called "luxurious" sod home.
The Stoll home featured large rooms on each floor, a screened room on the north, used in summer as a kitchen. There were windows on the top and bottom stories, and one on each end of the upper story. The finished walls of the home were the typical 3 feet thick and plastered inside and out, which tended to make the home cool in summer and warm in winter.
The front of the house was devoted to a large family-room. It was heated by a wood stove, which served to warm a majority of the house.
The kitchen was in the back of the house.
Outside the house but close to the kitchen, an underground cellar was dug and used for storing food. And to the right of the kitchen was a separate building, called the meat house, used for butchering cattle, and for hanging meat.
The upstairs had six or seven rooms separated by a middle corridor running the length of the building. The second-story walls were also plastered and "wall-papered." Eaves troughs lined the entire base of the roof. The troughs collected rain water which drained from the back corner of the roof into storage well.
The house was lit by carbide lamps, otherwise known as acetylene gas lamps that produced and burned acetylene gas created by the reaction of calcium carbide with water. This type of domestic lighting with acetylene gas was introduced around 1894.
As time passed, the Stoll children grew up and move away.
The land was mortgaged and rented out to various people, but the one-time "nicest house in the country" was left to deteriorate.
In 1946, the property was purchased by Jacob and Lucille Etchison. The Etchisons were unsuccessful in obtaining funds from the National Historical Society to restore the Stoll house, and so it continued to deteriorate.
The two-story sod house is now gone, and so are the Stolls, except Charles Francone, a descendent of William Stoll.
Francone still lives in Orchard and serves as a reminder to those who know him that a living connection to the two-story sod house remains in the community.
And although almost all else has gone, the stories, pictures and memories of the family, of the times and of the soddie endure.
They convincingly speak to the ingenuity and courage of William Stoll and others like him and to their ability, to adapt and to innovate — to survive and confidently carry on, and to live lives that leave succeeding generations quite amazed, and so very proud of what they accomplished in their time
(Other resources: "Morgan County Sod House: Two Story" by Steve Hale and Steve Severin; "About the Homestead Act" National Park Service website.)