No! The straw bale church built in 1928 by homesteaders in the Nebraska Sandhills hasn’t fallen down. At the ripe old age of 94, this church is standing proof of the longevity of Nebraska-style (load-bearing straw bale exterior walls)construction. It has been witness to history told and untold, and has withstood an increasingly harsh climate for nearly a century. It stands as one of the oldest straw bale buildings in the United States.
By the late 1920s many new settlers had found home in the high plains of Nebraska due to the Plains Indian Wars and the Kinkaid Act. This act, passed two decades prior by President Roosevelt, converted public land in much of western Nebraska into private land for new settlers. The high plains, and the Sandhills within them, are a harsh semi-arid region which has frigid winters and warm summers. When homesteaders arrived they found no trees, no rocks, and soft crumbly soil. There was very little naturally occurring material present to make a permanent building out of besides grasses. Using local rye grasses and the relatively new technology of the bale press, early 20th century settlers of the Sandhills used straw bales as building blocks. These bales along with floating sod, or “mud gumbo” from the many lakes scattered across the plains, were given a plastered finish, and used to build homes, schoolhouses, and churches.
The Pilgrim Holiness church is 32’ wide by 56’ long with a small vestibule protruding at the entry. It was built in the Nebraska-style with stacked straw bales serving as load-bearing exterior walls, and a simple wooden gable roof resting on top. The bales were tied with wire by hand and carted by mules to the site. They were laid on edge with three lath driven through each to hold them together to form the walls. The central chapel space holds seven rows of pews and a slightly raised altar. Behind the altar is a small kitchen and a parlor, which used to be the pastor’s residence. There is also a cellar below and a small dwelling space fashioned within the roof structure of the church.
The church hosted religious services for almost 50 years. It first saw sermons from Oral A. Morgan in 1928, the young cowboy who preached with his silver spurs on, and the church lived to see its final sermons from Verdeena Brown in 1967, who grew up practicing sermons on the family tractor and lead service in the “Baled Hay Church” until the bell was taken down. This church’s sloped theater-style wood floor and thick insulating walls held court for thousands of sermons and songs. Through this whole time the church was never given electricity or central heating and cooling, instead relying on the tall windows and thick walls to keep the space lit and temperate. The lack of wood available in the area means that it’s likely the church was heated by burning buffalo manure in its early years.
Recognizing its historical significance the Arthur Nebraska Historical Society (ANHS) nominated the church for the National Register of Historic Places in 1979, calling it “a significant folk architectural response to the vast Nebraska Sandhills environment”. The ANHS also made a point to mention that the church has been featured in Ripley’s Believe it or Not. In anticipation of this nomination, the ANHS restored the building with a reinforced foundation, a new shake shingle roof, and fresh stucco and paint.
