This image by Charles Graham and a short article appeared in the magazine Harper’s Weekly on Jan. 16, 1886. The article titled “Banking Up for Winter” talks about the frigid weather that frequents the northern plains. The author notes that the frigid temperatures are accompanied by gale winds, creating blizzards. He goes on to state that plain clapboard houses in the Dakota winter would be about as comfortable “as a gauze shirt and a sun umbrella in Greenland.” As the days grow short in autumn, residents of the plains begin to pile sod blocks around their houses to insulate them. In the spring they remove the sod blocks.