Growing a Nation: The Homestead Act of 1862

Growing a Nation: The Homestead Act of 1862

This photograph, taken in 1887, shows the log cabin at the Daniel Freeman homestead in Beatrice, Nebraska. History records Freeman as the first person to make a claim under the Homestead Act of 1862. While the cabin is long gone, Homestead Historical Park preserves the site and educates visitors on the history of homesteading in the United States. Photo credit: A. R. Campbell

The Homestead Act of 1862 remains one of the most significant factors shaping growth and settlement patterns in the United States, helping to drive homeownership and agricultural development in the Great Plains and American West. The act offered any citizen over the age of 21 who had not taken up arms against the United States or person, likewise aged, who had legally declared their intent to become a citizen a straightforward deal: by establishing residence on and cultivating an unclaimed tract of federally owned land in certain states, the homesteader could acquire title to 160 acres of land for a nominal fee. The Act's expansive eligibility helped to grow an area of the country that had remained sparsely settled by the middle of the 19th century. Between 1862 and 1976, more than 270 million acres across 30 states were claimed and settled, areas that had been the traditional or treaty lands of Native American tribes. Today, more than 93 million people claim descent from homesteaders, reflecting the ambitious vision of President Lincoln, who signed the Homestead Act into law. As Lincoln argued, "[T]he wild lands of the country should be distributed so that every man should have the means and opportunity of benefiting his condition."

Staking and Proving Up a Claim

The Homestead Act was amended several times over the decades, but as originally designed, the homesteading process began when a would-be homesteader paid the federal government $10 to stake a claim on a 160-acre "quarter section" of land. The homesteader would then spend the next 5 years "proving up" their claim, which involved meeting two main requirements: residency and improvement. To meet the residency requirement, the homesteader needed to live on the claim for most of each calendar year, which meant building a home. Meeting the improvement requirement meant cultivating a portion of the land. After 5 years, if the homesteader demonstrated a good-faith effort to continuously improve the land, then the homesteader would pay a final $6 fee, and the federal government would issue a deed to complete the land transfer. 

Homesteaders initially followed rivers and streams in search of suitable farming land, preferably with timber sufficient to construct a home. Land in the prairies of Minnesota, Iowa, eastern Nebraska, and Kansas proved the most suitable for farming, often boasting both water and timber resources to support settlement and cultivation. Land in areas further west often did not have these advantages. As early as 1870, settlers were pushing further into areas with fewer trees and less surface water. As a result, many homesteaders built their first homes as little more than earthen dugouts until they could build a sod, timber-framed, or log house. If no stream existed nearby, the homesteader had to dig wells that sometimes reached 200 or 300 feet into the ground. As the rail network expanded in the second half of the 19th century, new areas became accessible to homesteaders, and the trains also allowed farmers to transport their agricultural products to markets in the Midwest.

Homesteading under the act ended in 1976 in every state except Alaska. Over the course of a century of homesteading, settlers filed approximately 4 million claims, resulting in the transfer of 280 million acres of land into private hands. This transfer helped the United States grow its agricultural base, spread farming opportunity, and further the development of the West.

Homesteading was a challenging endeavor. More than 1 million claims made during the 19th century ultimately were abandoned without being proved up. Settlers faced intensive labor demands, isolation, and the threat of natural disasters including spring floods, summer heat, droughts, and hungry swarms of grasshoppers. A prospective homesteader also needed to be wary of fraud. In many cases, speculators drove up land costs and blocked would-be settlers from accessing prime land. Nevertheless, a significant amount of the nation's food production today occurs on land brought under cultivation in the Great Plains during the homesteading era.

Homesteading in American Culture

In 1913, homesteading reached its peak, as measured by the total number of acres claimed. Around this time, books and essays about homesteading and life as a homesteader were immensely popular, fueling a "back to the land" cultural movement. In the 1930s, the writings of Laura Ingalls Wilder helped enshrine homesteading in the American literary canon. Wilder's books continue to be widely read, conveying Wilder's "values of life" that include "courage, self-reliance, independence, helpfulness," and "cheerfulness and humor." Other works produced at the time instead depicted the hardships of homesteading, resonating with contemporary readers' experiences of the Great Depression. By the 1940s and 1950s, the Western emerged as a popular movie genre, often depicting heroic figures with an ethos of self-reliance. In reality, homesteaders depended on the mutual support of their pioneering communities.

The dispersed nature of homesteads encouraged the development of local democratic governance, according to historians. Scholars similarly have drawn connections between homesteading and the development of a shared national identity, as the experience of moving and establishing new areas lessened the importance of strong local ties and encouraged a broader sense of American character. 

History records Daniel Freeman as one of the first claimants under the Homestead Act. On January 1, 1863, the law went into effect and Freeman staked his claim near Beatrice, Nebraska, initiating a process that would continue until 1988, when Ken Deardorff received the deed for his claim in Alaska. Today, Daniel Freeman's homestead is preserved as part of Homestead Historical Park, where visitors can learn about homesteading in the United States and the pioneers who, thanks to the Homestead Act, settled the West.

Sources:

Hannah L. Anderson. 2011. "That Settles It: The Debate and Consequences of the Homestead Act of 1862," History Teacher 45:1, 117–37.

Blake Bell. 2012. "Homestead National Monument of America and the 150th Anniversary of the Homestead Act," Western Historical Quarterly 43:1, 72–8.

Greg Bradsher. 2012. "How the West Was Settled: The 150-Year-Old Homestead Act Lured Americans Looking for a New Life and New Opportunities," Prologue 44:4, 26–35.

Brian Q. Cannon. 2013. "Homesteading Remembered: A Sesquicentennial Perspective." Agricultural History 87:1, 1–29.

National Archives. n.d. "Milestone Documents: Homestead Act (1862)." Accessed 15 July 2025.

National Park Service. n.d. "About the Homestead Act." Accessed 13 August 2025.

National Park Service. n.d. "Creation of Homestead Historical Park." Accessed 15 July 2025.

National Park Service. n.d. "Homestead National Historical Park's Landscape." Accessed 15 July 2025.

National Park Service. n.d. "Kenneth Deardorff." Accessed 15 July 2025.

National Park Service. 2000. "The Homestead Act of 1862." Accessed 15 July 2025.

National Park Service. 2024. "Native Americans and the Homestead Act." Accessed 13 August 2025.

United States Senate. n.d. "The Civil War: The Senate's Story — Landmark Legislation: The Homestead Act of 1862." Accessed 15 July 2025.