Marshal McCully staked the land on which this house stands during the Cherokee Strip Run in September 1893, then plowed the sod for it and erected it in August 1894. It served as the McCully home until a large frame house was constructed in 1909. Of the many thousands of sod houses that once dotted the plains of Western America, this is the only one built by an original homesteader that is still standing. The site was purchased and restoration begun in 1964 by the Oklahoma Historical Society as a memorial to all pioneers of the Oklahoma Plains who lived in sod houses.