Posted by 3AustinE on September 27, 2009 at 10:32am
This Act was intended to give anyone in the United States the right to file for an application to get 160 free acres of land in the west for farming. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the government including freed slaves could get a peice of the Great Plains. This Act lasted for 22 years and it gave over 1.6 million homesteads to people who wished to move West.This caused many controversies among the people as one piece of land wasn't as good as the next. People then would file for one piece of land that many others might also apply for because of fertile soil or a water source. In the Rocky Mountains it became a scam where one person acting as a farmer would get a homestead around a watersource and then proceed to block it off so the the next one downstream wouldn't have any competitors. Because of this some people were able to get ahold of large expanses of land while some only got the 160 acres.People also used this method to secure natural resources such as iron, coal or timber. The large influx of people farming the land contributed greatly to the Dust Bowl. Because of all the companies that got ahold of land there was only 10% of the land given that was for the original purpose of the Act. This caused many people to become angry and the Act was later ended to give way for another of the same purpose that was a lot strickter in who it gave land to.SiteMap showing the states were land could be acquired (the red states are open for land)
Sod houses that would have been constructed during this time
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