I may be breaking in on a thread that has already covered this
ground, but around 1980 I worked on some house sites in western Illinois
(along the Illinois Riv.) which were also build with 2 front doors.  Local
historical information maintained that the area was first settled (at least
first settlement by anglo small farmers) by immigrants from Kentucky and
continued to be occupied by their descendents.  The houses were certainly
built before WWII and from what I remember were actually dated to the late
19th C.

         Tom




At 09:23 AM 3/20/02 -0600, you wrote:
>Since I have worked on the Ozark-St. Francis National Forests, I have seen
>material remains that I had never seen in over 20 years work in the Plains,
>Northern Rockies, Pacific Norwest or Alaska.  I presented a paper on some
>of them at the 1993 SHAs in Kansas City entitle "Which Front Door Do I Use
>and Other Ozark Exotica".
>
>In the southeastern part of the US (not Southern - to me Southern is
>Arizona-New Mexico), there a lots of house with TWO front doors.  I have
>found NONE of these built since WWII.  They were not built as duplexes but
>as single family homes.  One reason may be superstition.  In the Ozarks, a
>large majority of the people came from the southern Applicahians.  It was
>considered unlucky to cut a doorway into a house after it had already been
>built. I detailed some other superstitions associated with doors in the
>paper.  Door placement patterns vary widely.
>
>Another material culture item is Hot Beds.  Of course, when I first heard
>the term my purient interests went wild.  We find small ones on old
>farmsteads and I know of at least two large commercial ones.  They consist
>of three rows of rocks which make two channels.  These are covered wih
>large rocks and a small field rock chimney is built at one end.  The they
>are covered with earth.  The purpose is to plant Sweet Potato slips (or
>starts) in the soils on top.  In the evening, a small fire is built at the
>open end and then the fire and hot coals are mshovel into the two tunnels .
>This keeps the soil warm on cool spring nights until the slips can be
>planted.  Sweet potatoes are grown here since it is too hot and humid for
>regular potatoes in the southeast but sweet taters do just fine.
>
>Smoke.
>
>
>Smoke (Michael A.) Pfeiffer, RPA
>Ozark-St. Francis National Forests
>605 West Main Street
>Russellville, Arkansas 72801
>(479) 968-2354  Ext. 233
>e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
>
>It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.