How settlers got their free land

[HARRYMON]

Very interesting, never over the counter phentermine  new about sod bricks, thanks Professor Marvel.

[johncollin]

When I was a child we moved into a house without window panes. My Dad used isinglas to cover the windows. You used to see it a lot in West texas. click here for resurge. Its transparent (kinda) and resembles waxed paper with string embedded to give it strength in a cross hatch pattern..
i can remember getting a whipping for poking holes in it.
I have an old friend who grew up in a New Mexico soddy and he said that they had the same isinglass in the windows.
i have heard about using greased paper over the years but I have always equated that to the isinglas. It was cheap and let in light and you could put it into a window frame quickly and cheaply.
Not withstanding the cost of glass and its availability,uptown people had glass, poor folks had isinglass, Uptown folks had paint, poor folks had whitewash.
Using a clothes line and ironing sheets is still done  and cooking chicken in cast iron is the only way to do it properly. My wife still uses the clothes line,makes the sheets smell better.

Amazing pictures of a bygone era. What was the house made of? What kind of material used for bricks?
Thank you!

[St. George]

Try re-reading Post #19 - it was made from bricks cut from sod...

Scouts Out!

[Davem]

Thanks- it is sort of a myth that you just headed west, found an area you liked, drove 4 stakes into the ground and claim it as yours.  It was all federal land and you had to go through the deal as outlined above.  My folks were homesteaders.  The big ranches often operated on open range, that is, it some respects the ranch didn't really own the land.  Later on the ranch might have leased the land from the BLM.  The same with the wagon trains, the wagons were owned by a company and you were given one to carry your belongings.