ADOBE AS A BUILDING MATERIAL FOR THE PLAINS. 
By J. W. Adams, Superintendent of Plains Sub-Station 
To the settlers of the plains, the subject of building material is of 
great importance. Comfort, cheapness, durability, and neatness of ap¬ 
pearance are the elements considered in selecting building material for 
the homestead. 
In this connection, we should like to call the attention of the set¬ 
tlers of the plains to the adobe buildings, or “Dobeys,” as they are com¬ 
monly called. These should not be confounded with the sod buildings. 
I do not wish to cast any reflections upon the “Soddy.” It has served, 
and is still serving a good purpose as a cheap, comfortable house; but, 
at best, it is only a makeshift until the owner can build better. The 
“Soddy” is always settling and cracking the plaster, thus annoying the 
the housewife. The sod wall is an ideal harbor for mice and rats, and 
it is usually short-lived. 
Not so with the adobe building. An adobe house, properly built, 
will cost no more than a sod house and yet be as permanent, attractive 
and comfortable as it is possible to build a house. They do not settle 
after they are dry. Mice do.not work in them if they are protected at 
the foundation. They are superior to concrete or cement block houses 
in that they are non-conductors of heat and cold. They never sweat or 
become frosty on the inside, and rain does not wet the walls through as 
it does in many concrete houses. The labor required to build an adobe 
house is no more than that required to build a similar house of sod or 
concrete. 
At the Plains Sub-station, at Cheyenne Wells, we built during the 
summer of 1910 three adobe buildings which have attracted so much at¬ 
tention and favorable comment that we have decided to publish this bul¬ 
letin describing these buildings, giving cost of material, time required 
to build them, and describing the process of building so that any person 
desiring to build such buildings may do so. 
We erected these buildings on concrete foundations eight inches 
high. This is not necessary, if one is always careful to keep the build¬ 
ings banked up to prevent water settling around them. The concrete 
foundation is desirable, however, as a protection against mice and rats. 
These foundations were very cheap, as we used old cement blocks from 
a burned building to mix with the concrete. If rock of any kind is 
available the foundations need not cost much. 
In planning a building of this kind, we should consider the kind of 
roof to be used and make the dimensions such that it may be covered 
with the least possible waste of material. The dimensions being de¬ 
cided upon, stake out the foundation carefully. If concrete foundation 
