Bossert sod house Mercer – McLean County

Photos of the Rudolf Bossert sod house south of Mercer in McLean County, ND. I was visiting North Dakota in the summer of 2005 and my Uncle Don took me on a road trip south of Mercer in McLean County to visit the farmsteads of his great-uncle Rudolf Bossert and his great-grandfather Andreas Bossert. In this pic from 2005, you can see that the grass on the ‘road’ was tall, it was the same this year.

• Andreas Bossert 1851-1913
• Rudolf Bossert 1889-1951
• Donald Delmer Dick 1938-2010

Here is the current wide view. Garage on the left. Bonnie and Jeep for perspective, the sod house on the right.

The overall state of the two room sod house, then and now. In 2005 the exterior walls and chimney were still intact, today the chimney is gone and the ceiling is sagging.

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Details of the exterior wall showing the corner and the stucco, then and now.

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Looking in at the kitchen, then and now. In the old photo, the floor was sagging into the root cellar. It’s now collapsed and you can see the round posts that held the cellar ceiling up. Notice the kitchen ceiling falling on the recent photo. Don’t know what happened to the boxes of canning jars.

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Uncle Don and I explored the attic in 2005, he’s in the photo on the left. I’m in the same are but on the ground in 2019. We found a bag of old Christmas cards and birth announcements and a bag of empty garden seed packets in the attic. The ladder that was still usable in 2005 was beyond repair in 2019.

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I hope to visit the Rudolf Bossert sod house Mercer McLean County soon and add more photos.