Prairie Education Lab

The dugout is a replica of the first house built in Salina. It was recreated from photographs of the original by members of the Museum staff.

The Prairie Education Lab (PEL) is the area surrounding the dugout, featuring a “dirt” floor, two large trees, new “old” furniture, and a large wall mural.

Thanks to the extraordinary talents of several individuals, mostly local, the space really does take visitors back to the 1860s. Local photographer George Jerkovich took the photograph which provides the mural used as a backdrop while local artist, historian, and carpenter Jimmie Lewis has made hand-hewn furniture and tree stump seating for the area. Clarke Design from Lincoln, Nebraska produced a leaf covered tree and a "dirt" floor which makes visitors feel that they really are sitting outside a pioneer family’s dugout.

In the trunk of one of the new trees, children will find several interactive displays. There they will find materials and information about building log homes, books dealing with life on the prairie, stuffed toy prairie animals and lots of other fun things to do.

Also in the tree trunk is "Seasons of the Smoky Hill." Using pictures taken by George Jerkovich, local author Lori Brack developed an activity which gives children (and adults) the opportunity to interpret our landscape through visualizing, writing, and drawing. She has also produced a series of educational programming and teacher resource kits for elementary age students dealing with such varied subjects as grasshoppers, prairie games and prairie shelters. These will be great activities for visiting school children as well as families and individuals.

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What was the first house built in Salina?

When Alexander Campbell and James Muir first came to the Salina area to build a town, they needed some kind of permanent shelter. They chose a site on the west bank of the Smoky Hill River, just north and east of the intersection of North Front and East Elm streets to build their dugout.

They used trees from the riverbank to make a ridge pole, rafters, and wall supports. They shored up the sides of the dugout to prevent cave-in and used forked trees to support the ridge pole. The side walls and ridge pole supported the rafters, which were covered with brush, twigs, grass and sod to form a roof and mud and grass to chink the walls. The door had to be narrow and low to provide protection from the elements and intruders, and there weren’t any windows.

Since the dugout was meant for storage and sleeping, they added a rough, arbor-style front porch. While the dugout met their basic requirements, it was dark, dirty, leaky, and vermin-infested. Snakes and spiders fell from the ceiling, and the ceiling would leak for days after a storm, so it wasn’t meant to be a permanent home. Nevertheless, the dugout was considered the first home in Salina.

In 1997, working from an original drawing by Alexander Campbell, the Smoky Hill Museum staff and volunteers took on the project of building a replica of this first house built in Salina. This dugout is now one of the permanent exhibits at the Museum.