Catherine Jones
HST-143-D040/Professor Quirk
The West
January 21, 2016

Moving and settling on the Great Plains during the nineteenth century was no easy task. There were many hardships involved in the laborious task of the moving process and even more involved in building and maintaining a home. The fact that the settlers were moving to the Great Plains added even more difficulties to the task because of its climate and geography. One of the hardships that settlers faces was that there were few building materials on the Great Plains. They usually constructed their houses out of sod which was less than ideal. Sod houses allowed bugs and animals to easily dig through the walls and it also leaked water into the homes very easily. These sod homes also allowed very little light or even air to pass into them. Other hardships included their isolation from one another, the unfortunate use of manure as fuel for fire because of the lack of wood, the dry climate of the Great Plains, and as a result of the climate, the lack of water. Settlers could not plant crops because the ground was too dry and the climate was too humid, that and the fact that there was the lack of water. This forced the settlers to build windmills just so they could pump water. There was also the obstacle of having a lack of money. Since the settlers were so isolated from one another that meant there were no nearby businesses or places of work for settlers to earn money. This lack of money meant living in sparse conditions and making the most of everything, but it also meant having to borrow. In order to attempt to plant crops, farmers on the Great Plains needed machinery. This machinery though, was very expensive and because of this farmers had to borrow money to buy it, which only put them in debt and added to their difficulties.