Burning Buffalo Chips for Fuel


When the first homesteaders settled on the treeless Great Plains, there was a scarcity of wood to burn and a scarcity of money to spend. What money people had was used to buy badly needed supplies, but fuel did not need to be on the list. All over the Plains an organic fuel was available: dried buffalo manure, or, as it was more commonly called, buffalo chips.

Buffalo chips on the Great Plains.

It was the job of the women and children to go out and collect the chips. The Younger children gathered all the chips they could find and put them in piles. The Women then loaded them into carts or wagons and hauled them home. The buffalo chips were stacked not too far from the kitchen, but not too close either because of the dust and the smell. Whenever it started raining, the cry rang up and down the Plains: “Cover the chip pile!” No matter what anyone was doing, the chip pile was covered with boards, old pieces of tin, worn-out quilts, or anything that would keep the chips dry.

Buffalo chips made a good fire, giving off lots of heat. However they burned out quickly. Someone was always busy just keeping the fire burning and refueled. The chips produced a lot of ashes, which had to be removed often. The dust from the ashes Seemed to settle everywhere in the houses.

Charley O’Kieffe, in his book Western Story, related how his mother baked biscuits using buffalo chips. She Would fire up the stove get out the flour sack, stoke the stove, wash her hands, mix the biscuit dough, stoke the stove, wash her hands, cut out the biscuits with the top of a baking powder can, stoke the stove wash her hands, put the pan of biscuits in the oven, and keep on stoking the stove until the biscuits were done. The homestead woman could go through this tedious routine three times a day.

By 1885, most of the original crop of buffalo chips had been gathered and burned. The settlers switched over to cow chips, corn cobs, twisted hay, or chokecherry brush. Later, as people prospered and there was a better transportation system, soft coal was brought in. It was messier and harder to handle than the chips but once a coal fire got started it burned longer and made less ash to blow around. Buffalo chips became a fuel of the past.