"1930s America Buildings" Topic

So a while back I picked up a bunch of Chicago Way 4Ground buildings (not sure why !!), and by sheer luck stumbled across the Netflix Damnation series last week.

Wow loads of food for thought there. So I was wondering does anyone else produce 28mm MDF 1920s-30s rural American type buildings that would fit alongside the 4ground ones ? I am thinking about a small town setting.

Thanks all..

HI

Most rural areas in the US would have really Basic buildings. Many would look like earlier ACW farms. Many start as a Log cabins then had additions and siding add later.

Tin and tar paper were popular building materials across most of the USA.

Also board and baton construction was often used.

These simple style and material make for easy paper models or scratch-building.

Did a search for "O Scale Model Railroad Buildings"
O gauge RR kits are 1/48th scale, a pretty good fit for 28mm figures.
Ebay has lots including MDF kits:
auction

Model Railroad shops will have things like these:
link

"Plasticville" is a brand of low cost very simple buildings you can look for.
Quite a few are shown here:
link

This web site has a lot of iconic USA 1920s building as paper kits. If you have not done paper models there are lots of free ones to try first:
link

Lots of free model:
papermau.blogspot.com

Here are images and some plans of Sears kit homes which were very popular and often copied across the USA in the early 20th century. Can give you a good idea of what middle class type houses would have been like:
link

link

Thanks all for the comments. After a little more research I was surprised to see how unsophisticated many rural buildings were, and most likely wouldn't have looked out of place in an ACW setting.

I also found a great range at link which should also fit in and nicely priced.

Ref. the Sears catalogue, there are some seriously nice designs in there I know many people could only dream of having!! Not much "working class" stuff in there I think.

The Sears house were not work "Working" people but for middle class.

The majority of Americans would have lived in much lesser structures. A "shack" for one form or another. Search for terms like Railroad Shack and Shotgun Shack.

These are the ones I referred to as being made of tin (corrugated iron),

tar paper (ticky tacky,)
link

This is a very good photo of a tar-paper building:
link

and board:

Many rural structures were covered in tin (corrugated iron). As it was low cost and easy to handle. Shipped in great quantity by rail.

The vendor you pointed to has mostly, "Old West" type buildings. The "ROW OF 5 SHACKS PREPAINTED KIT" is very good, but the rest would have not made it into the 1920s except in ghost towns. The false front commercial building is very iconic of the settling of the "west" (a roughly between the west coastal mountains and the central grass lands) These would have started as the front made of wood with the bulk of the structure being a tent, then a shack behind the front. With time replaced with an cast iron front or brick. Very few by 1920.

Another common building covering material by 1920 was cement shingles or Asbestos shingles. These are cast to look like wood:

A great many of these 1920s (built 1890-1920) are still standing in older parts of USA towns and cities. So Google street view can almost be a viewer back in time in many places.

This site shows some of the lower sidings:
link