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Sod House on the Prairie
12598 Magnolia Ave.
Sanborn, MN 56083


Member of Minnesota Bed & Breakfast Guild

Sod House Bed & Breakfast

A unique opportunity to step back in time, retreat from life's hustle and bustle, and be a sod house pioneer for the night.


  • 20 miles from Walnut Grove on the Laura Ingalls Historic Highway
  • 1 mile east, 1/4 mile south of Junction of Highways 71 & 14
  • for Bed & Breakfast reservations, call 507-723-5138
  • Website: www.sodhouse.org

See the prairie
like it
used to be!


Tour two full-sized sod houses furnished like the 1880s surrounded by prairie grasses and wildflowers

  • Self-guided tours
  • Exhibit open daily April–October
  • Admission $3.00 per person
  • Admission Under age 7: Free
  • Group tours, call for appointment 507-723-5138

Make it a family adventure!

Step inside the
prairie soddy

  • walls of sod...2 feet thick
  • lumber roof and floor
  • one room replica furnished like 1880
  • the bed & breakfast soddy

Find the log cabin

  • a trapper's cabin
  • furs, traps, and Indian things
  • about the size of Laura's dugout

Be an overnight guest

  • oil lamps for lights
  • two double beds and fainting couch
  • wood-burning stove
  • outhouse
  • wash pitcher & bowl
  • prairie clothes to dress in
  • full breakfast served

Explore the dugout

  • floor and walls of dirt
  • roof of cottonwood poles & dried grass
  • furnishings plain and simple
  • a ladder to the loft
  • an erie feeling of hardship

See the sod cutters

  • find the shed near the dugout
  • one was used by Stan McCone
  • other is from the 1880s

Walk in tallgrass prairie

  • ten acres of restored prairie grasses
  • six to eight feet tall
  • big bluestern and Indian grass
  • pioneers called it the "sea of grass"
  • grass so tall they "stood on a horse to look ahead"

Follow the wildflower trails

  • a blaze of color
  • reds, blues, yellows, purples
  • flowers and grasses growing together

Sod House Builder Stan McCone built these sod replicas in 1987-1988 as a personal tribute to the homesteaders who came to this treeless prairie. Stan and his family presently live on the farmsite where the sod houses are standing.