Pioneer Dugout

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, picture the High Plains — Carson County, Texas. We're talkin' about the era between 1874 and 1888.

And what you see stretching out in every direction is a sea of grass. Just grass. Miles and miles of it, right to the horizon, and not a single stick of timber.

No stone worth quarrying. No adobe clay to speak of. Nothing to build a home with.

Nothing at all. So what do you do? You go into the ground.

You build a dugout. That's right — you carve your home out of the earth itself, and the earth becomes your walls, your insulation, your shelter. Warm in winter, cool in summer.

The land itself looking after you, in its own stubborn way. Now, if a settler had a little more grit — or maybe a little more desperation — they'd hitch up the wagon and make the journey. Some 300 miles, there and back, just to haul lumber back across that sea of grass.

Do that, and you earned yourself a half-dugout. Half in the ground, half above it. A step up in the world, you might say, though it still started underground.

And folks made these places home, truly home. Some dugouts were carpeted. Some were lined with cloth on the walls.

Some even had an extra room set aside — for the schoolteacher, maybe, or other guests. They had stoves for cooking and heating, and what did those stoves burn? Buffalo chips.

Cow chips. Whatever the land provided, the pioneers put to use. This exact replica of a Carson County half-dugout — the one standing right here — was donated by a woman named Opal Purvines.

She gave it to honor her parents, the John F. Weatherlys, and all the other pioneer families who figured out how to live on a grassland that gave them almost nothing to build with. They went into the ground, and they made it work.

That's the High Plains way.

What the marker says

In the 1874-1888 era the High Plains (a sea of grass) had no native timber, stone, or adobe building materials. Homes were dugouts, or, if settlers' wagons went some 300 miles for lumber, half-dugouts. Dugouts were warm in winter, cool in summer. Some were carpeted and cloth-lined. Some had an extra room, for the schoolteacher or other guests. The cooking and heating stoves burned buffalo chips, cow chips. This exact replica of a Carson County half-dugout was donated by Opal Purvines to honor her parents, the John F. Weatherlys, and other pioneer families.