This photograph has six people, two mules and a dog in it, but it is always the cow that catches people’s attention. In the Great Plains of the United States it was commonplace for early settlers to build simple houses out of sod to shelter their family until they could afford more substantial homes. In this case, the Rawding family built their soddy into the side of a hill, so the grazing cow is both on the hillside, and on the roof of the house. The people in the image are (left to right) Emma (Leadbetter) Rawding, Sylvester W. Rawding, daughter Bessie, and sons Philip, William, and Harry.

This public domain image was taken in 1886 by Solomon Devore Butcher (1856-1927) near Sargent, in Custer County Nebraska. We profiled Butcher in our post of his photograph of Broken Bow Hardware. Butcher is listed in the 1900 census in West Union, Nebraska, and in the 1910 census in Kearney, Nebraska, still active as a photographer.