Homestead on the Prairie

Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act on May 20, 1862, and the first claim came in shortly after midnight on January 1, 1863. A Union Army scout named Daniel Freeman filed it near Beatrice, in what was still Nebraska Territory.

The terms were short enough to fit on a page. A settler got 160 acres, lived on them for five years, built a dwelling of at least twelve by fourteen feet and raised a crop. By 1934 more than 1.6 million applications had been processed and over 270 million acres, about a tenth of the country, had passed into private hands.

On the plains the land came free but the water did not. A windmill pumping from a well was often what let a family stay on ground miles from the nearest creek.

Here the day is ending. The sun sits on the horizon and the tall grass has gone gold, with a worn dirt track curving in from the foreground. A small wooden house with a covered porch stands at the right, a windmill beside it and a window catching the last light. At left a horse and wagon stand on the track, and flat-topped hills run off under heavy clouds the color of embers.