Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to the traveling thresher men and the large landowners. An International
Harvester Machines catalogue from the early 1940s includes baler config-
urations from single-horse-powered to the then-state-of-the-art pick-up
baler, which baled in the field, picking up the hay directly from the
windrows into which it had been raked.) People and things interacted
in networks, and straw-bale builders had to deal with changes in baling
technologies.
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The oldest straw-bale building still standing in Nebraska is the 1903
Burke homestead, covered with a shake-shingled hip roof. Located just west
of Alliance, it continued in use as a home until it was abandoned in 1956.
Because bale structures went up quickly, some families in immediate need
of housing turned to bales as the quickest way to create shelter. In many
cases these structures were regarded as temporary, to be used until a “proper
home” of wood could be built. However, discovering that such homes were
both durable and comfortable in the weather extremes of Nebraska winters
and summers, people plastered over the straw walls and made them perma-
nent homes. Such was the case of the Burke homestead, the exterior walls
of which remained unplastered for 10 years after it was built.While it cur-
rently is showing deterioration because it has not been maintained and the
roof is in poor repair, it has withstood more than 90 years of wide temper-
ature swings and blizzard winds in relatively good condition.
Other historic bale buildings are the headquarters and bunkhouse at the
Fawn Lake Ranch near Hyannis. Both structures were erected between
1900 and 1914 and are still in use. According to owner Mike Milligan,
when the walls were opened to add an addition to one of the buildings in
the 1950s, some of the original bales were set aside near a corral.The bales
were so well preserved that horses in the corral reached over the fence and
ate the sweet meadow hay in the 50-year-old bales.
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“Nebraska style” bale construction, used in all the examples discussed so
far, is load bearing, meaning that the weight of the roof rests directly on the
stacked bales. The 900-square-foot Scott house, built of wheat straw by
Leonard and Tom Scott between 1935 and 1938 near Gordon, is an exam-
ple of the technique at its best.The current resident, Lois Scott, has resided
there since childhood and remembers her mother's opposition to building
her home with straw bales.This unconventional building medium was con-
sidered to be low in status even by many of those who employed it of
necessity. However, Lois Scott reports that her mother, despite her earlier
