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Throughout the world, people have always built their homes with locally available, naturally occurring materials.
During the 1800's, settlers on the Great Plains of North America encountered vast, timber-poor grasslands, and had little choice but to find building materials from the scant natural resources.
Houses made of baled straw made
sturdy, warm temporary shelters.
The invention of horse-powered,and later steam-powered straw baling machinery made construction of straw homes faster and easier.Realizing that their makeshift homes were warm in winter and cool in summer, the homesteaders began to apply stucco to the strawto make permanent homes.
The largest concentration of straw bale homes dating from the late nineteenth and twentieth century are located in Nebraska, where about twenty five structures still stand.
Most of these structures are still in use as family homes and museums.
Straw bale construction declined in popularity after the 1940's due to greater availability of massproduced, low cost building materials.
It was not until the 1970's that people again began to appreciate the beauty and simplicity of straw bale building.
Today, hundreds of new straw bale homes are under construction throughout the world.
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