Straw-bale houses still standing

RUSSELL K. JOHNSON hasn’t done his homework (Letters, Feb. 19). Many of the original straw-bale homes and churches built in Nebraska 100 years ago are still in use today, including the Sturtz ranch house near Stapleton, Neb., built in 1905.

The city museum of Huntsville, Ala., is a straw-bale structure which has survived in the humidity and rain of the Deep South since 1938.

A well-designed straw-bale home is at least as durable as a stick-frame structure and probably more so.

Marsha Scarbrough

Los Angeles