It was on this day in 1862 that the Homestead Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. Two-hundred seventy million acres of land, or 10% of the United States, were claimed under the act. Under its provisions, anyone who was the head of a household and twenty-one years of age was eligible to claim 160 acres of land. The only cost to the homesteader was an $18 filing fee, after making the necessary “land improvements” of constructing a house and plowing the ground. The homesteader had five years to make the required improvements. The act spurred a great land boom in the western United States, and was largely responsible for populating the fledgling state of North Dakota in the 1880’s. Between 1879 and 1886 over 100,000 people entered the state, the majority of whom where homesteaders who answered the call of ‘dirt cheap’ land. The act remained in effect until its repeal in 1976.

Sources:
http://www.nps.gov/home/homestead_act
http://www.nps.gov/home/Homestead%20Act%20of%201862
http://www.state.nd.us/hist/ndhist

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