George Barrett's Cement House
Near Dayton, Ohio
After fire destroyed his home in the eighteen fifties, George Barrett did not rebuild in wood. He had read about a new method of construction using hydraulic cement, and he decided to try it himself. Barrett mixed and poured the cement walls of a house that still stands today.
The technique was cheaper than brick, faster to build, and far more resistant to the fires that regularly leveled frontier homes. Barrett's house is regarded as an early example of poured-cement domestic construction in Ohio, and the National Register of Historic Places later recognized it. What looked like a practical response to a household disaster turned out to be a quiet act of architectural innovation, one working-class builder quietly ahead of his era.
