The Hepburn Act Of 1906

Many historians consider the Homestead Act 1 of the most important pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into police force in 1862 in order to provide more people with the opportunity to become landowners.

To best understand why this police force became so meaningful, it helps to take a deeper look at what the rules of the Homestead Human action involved and why it played such a big role in the settlement of the American West. Exploring the pros and cons of the Homestead Deed — and checking out a National Park that's dedicated to the era — further demonstrates the significance of this law.

How Did the Homestead Act Work?

The Homestead Act created a law that gave people from all walks of life the opportunity to get landowners, and it also encouraged people to motility to the western function of the state and begin settling it. Every bit President Lincoln himself put information technology, the purpose of the act was "to elevate the status of men, to elevator artificial burdens from all shoulders and to give everyone an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life."

The provisions of the Homestead Act allowed virtually anyone who was willing to work hard to claim a 160-acre area of land for a filing fee of $18. In club to keep the land, withal, homesteaders had to come across certain requirements. To become landowners, they had to:

Be at least 21 years of historic period or the head of a household
Agree to live on the land, build a home on it, subcontract information technology and brand improvements to it for at least five years
Certify that they had never borne arms against the The states, significant they had never fought against the country

Once a homesteader had claimed a piece of state and fulfilled all of the requirements, they had to find at least two neighbors who could verify they were following the rules. At the end of five years, they were considered "proved up" and would receive a patent for the country that made them the official owners. Soldiers who had fought for the Marriage during the U.S. Ceremonious War were allowed to subtract the fourth dimension they served in the state of war from the five-year requirement. If people were willing to spend $200 for their 160-acre parcels, they only needed to reside on the country for six months to plant residency before existence granted official ownership.

I of the most important benefits of the Homestead Act was that it gave women, formerly enslaved people and newly arrived immigrants the chance to become landowners when they previously hadn't had the opportunity to do so. The human activity fabricated huge amounts of state bachelor to the public and resulted in the settlement of 270 meg acres, which was around x% of the full area of the United States.

The Homestead Act was a beneficial opportunity for many people who might never take otherwise been able to afford big amounts of land. On the other hand, it did crave new landowners to build and run farms, which many people also couldn't afford to do.

Photograph Courtesy: National Park Service

The human action did, however, end upwardly leading the United states' expansion into the West. Claims were filed in thirty states, with much of the country beingness settled in Montana, North Dakota, Colorado and Nebraska. Although this was helpful for those who were able to have advantage of the Homestead Act, it was devastating for many Native Americans, who plant themselves forced off of their land in order to brand fashion for homesteaders.

Another problem was that there were big numbers of people and companies that took reward of the Homestead Act in less-than-honest ways. It didn't help that some of the wording of the law wasn't very specific and ended upwards assuasive people to employ loopholes. For instance, the deed stated that 12×14 homes had to be built on each slice of country. Unfortunately, it didn't specify that these measurements were in feet, so some people got around the requirement past building 12-inch past 14-inch "homes."

Additionally, due to the nature of the West at the fourth dimension, it was most incommunicable to enforce the requirements of the Homestead Act because there merely weren't plenty regulators to brand certain that everything was up to code. As a result, the National Archives reveals that "of some 500 million acres dispersed by the Full general Land Office between 1862 and 1904, only fourscore million acres went to homesteaders. Indeed, pocket-sized farmers acquired more land nether the Homestead Act in the 20th century than in the 19th."

Why Did the Homestead Act Come to an End?

While many people associate the Homestead Act with pioneers of the 1800s, it actually remained an agile police until 1976. It did see a major bump along the fashion, however, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934.

The Taylor Grazing Act was intended to regulate cattle-grazing activities on public land, which had become over-grazed by farming activities that damaged the soil. However, the police force too ended upward turning a great deal of rangeland into grazing districts managed by the Bureau of Country Management. The Homestead Act finally met its official cease in 1976 when it was replaced with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which stated that "public lands exist retained in Federal ownership." This means the formerly public land that could've been eligible for Homestead Human activity settlers became property of the U.S. federal regime. Interestingly enough, homesteading was still immune in Alaska until 1986.

By 1976, the Homestead Act seemed to have mostly run its course. The concluding person ever to receive country under the act was a man named Ken Deardorff, who filed a merits in 1974 and fulfilled all of the requirements by 1979. Unfortunately, information technology took until 1988 for the government to finally go his land patent to him for reasons that are still unknown.

History reveals that the first person always to gain buying of land under the Homestead Act was a human being named Daniel Freeman, who filed a claim in 1863 in Beatrice, Nebraska. Due to the significance of his claim, the Homestead National Historical Park was established just outside the small-scale Nebraska boondocks. Daniel Freeman's original homestead and the structure he built on it are nevertheless a part of the park to this day.

Visitors to the Homestead National Historical Park can also enjoy live history demonstrations, craft, and more at the park's Homestead Educational Middle. The park hosts a variety of other important buildings, such equally a 14-pes by 16-foot motel congenital in 1867 by a homesteader named George Due west. Palmer. You can also see the "Freeman School," which served equally a school for prairie children from 1872 until 1967. There'southward even a museum full of artifacts and information from the homestead era, admission to genealogical information and miles of nature trails to explore, demonstrating the importance of the act and the impact it had on American history.

The Hepburn Act Of 1906,

Source: https://www.reference.com/history/what-is-homestead-act-1862?utm_content=params%3Ao%3D740005%26ad%3DdirN%26qo%3DserpIndex&ueid=05d29259-2180-44b0-b636-c19b4fcebb3a

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