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1862
In one of the most
significant and enduring events in the westward expansion of the United
States, President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Homestead Act, a
program designed to grant public land to small farmers at low cost. The
act gave 160 acres of land to any applicant who was the head of a
household and 21 years or older, provided that the person settled on the
land for five years and then paid a small filing fee. By the end of the
Civil War, some 15,000 land claims had been made. and by 1900, some
600,000 claims had
been made for some 80 million acres of public land.
The Homestead
National Monument of America, located in Beatrice, Nebraska,
commemorates this Act and the far-reaching effects it had upon the
landscape and people of the plains.
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