Homesteaders, also known as sodbusters, farmed the Great Plains of the United States from the 1860s to 1980s. They moved west under the Homestead Act of 1862 to fulfill their dreams and take up free land. But to receive title to the promised 160 acres (640 in some drought stricken places), homesteaders had to do two things. They had to build a home and farm their claim for five straight years. Neither task proved easy on the plains of South Dakota. There were few trees for building houses. The land was difficult to farm. But that didn't stop these sodbusters from trying. Prairie homesteaders built houses from the materials at hand. - They dug sod homes, called soddies, into the ground. They made sod bricks out of buffalo grass. - And while there was little they could do to combat insects and drought, the homesteaders grazed cattle and plowed as much land as they could.