| PERSPECTIVE |
(April 26, 2002) - There's a place in Nebraska where you can learn about life on the frontier. The Homestead National Monument near Beatrice tells the story of the Homestead Act of 1862. The act offered free land as an incentive to lure settlers to the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain regions of America. The Monument's been a quiet Southeast Nebraska attraction for more than 50-years, but now the National Park Service wants to make the Homestead National Monument of America bigger and better. New facilities and a research center are planned, along with new ways of teaching kids about the importance of homesteading. Some of the changes are in the works, others need money. It will cost more than 20-million dollars of public and private funds to get the job done. Brad Penner reports supporters say it's time to tell the story of homesteading to the nation. |
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Transcript of Perspective
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Transcript of Monumental Changes
[Amy Garrett] They would put that inside a pail… a big bin of water, and they'd put their clothes in there and then they would stamp down on it to stamp all the dirt out of the clothing.
[Brad Penner]
Even a mundane chore like laundry offers insight into life on the prairie.
[Amy Garrett]
So what's on the list, what's next? Okay, on the other side there are some farm implements. Let's go take a look at the farm implements.
A wonderful thing about studying the Homestead Act and the people who participated in the Homestead Act is learing about their creativity, their imagination. Because they always knew that there was a better way of doing something. So here at the monument we can share those tools that they used to homestead… the techniques that they used to farm the land.
[Brad Penner]
Fifth Graders from Daykin-Meridian and Zion schools quickly formed their own impressions of homesteaders.
[Andrew]
They were pretty brave to go out there and build all their houses.
[Bailey]
They had blizzards and grasshopper invasions… tornadoes and forest fires.
[Reid]
They just lived through all that, blizzards and dust storms, drought. And they had to do all the crops without the stuff that we have today.
[Brad Penner]
Do you think you'd be tough enough to handle that?
[Reid/Andrew]
No… Probably not.
[Brad Penner]
Generations of southeast Nebraska students have visited the Homestead National Monument of America near Beatrice. They've learned about the Homestead Act and pioneer life. They know the story. Staff and supporters of the Homestead believe it's time the rest of the nation hears the story.
[Mark Engler]
Long ago this was the story of survival and it was a story that families either succeeded with or families failed with. And it's a story of human triumph or human failure.
[Brad Penner]
Park superintendent Mark Engler sees a bright future for the Monument. It's built on land Daniel Freeman homesteaded.
[Mark Engler]
From up her you get a good view of the Monument… the 160 acres that Freeman would've claimed.
[Brad Penner]
Freeman made his claim at midnight on January first, 1963.
[Todd Arrington]
And so Daniel Freeman did claim this spot on that very first day of the Homestead Act. And therefore we can say with certainty that it was among the very first homesteads anywhere in the country. Certainly the first in Nebraska, and quite possibly the first anywhere in America.
[Brad Penner]
Freeman came from Ohio with his wife Agnes. He was a doctor, a farmer and even served as Sheriff. He was lured west, like thousands of others, by the cry of free land.
[Todd Arrington]
It offered people greata opportunities that a lot of them wouldn't have had otherwise. People who maybe didn't have a lot of money, who were living in tenement buildings in New York or Baltimore or Philadelphia, some of the larger cities back East. People who were emigrants and came to this country not knowing anyone, not speaking the language.
[Brad Penner]
Homesteaders settles more than 270 million acres in the western United States.
[Todd Arrington]
It was responsible for the settlement of well over a hundred thousand farms here in this state. In fact, Nebraska had the third highest amount of homesteads anywhere in America. Only Montana and North Dakota had more.
[Mark Engler]
It's a park that reflects upon the story of the early settlement of the American West.
[Brad Penner]
The National Park Service appears ready to make a bigger commitment to the Homestead. The park's new general management plant calls for a 17-million dollar Homestead Heritage Center. It would be built near the place where Daniel and Agnes Freeman are buried.
[Mark Engler]
It's the Palmer-Epard cabin and it was built in 1867. It was moved to this location, but it typlifies the type of housing that a homesteading family would have had in this part of Nebraska.
[Brad Penner]
This cabin would be moved inside the new Heritage Center.
[Mark Engler]
With this Heritage Center we hope to construct exhibits around there that would exemplify what life was actually like living on the Nebraska frontier.
[Amy Garrett]
Randy is a woman homesteader. She's 21 years of age today.
[Brad Penner]
Ranger Amy Garrett uses a skit to teach kids about the process of homesteading.
[Amy Garrett]
You had to have 12 dollars to file on your claim.
[Brad Penner]
A claim got a homesteader 160 acres of land. Then came the hard part, he or she had to build a house, live on the land and farm at least ten acres. If a homesteader met these conditions they'd get a document of ownership called a patent after five years.
[Amy Garrett]
You've gotta take that six dollars all the back to Brownville and you've gotta go with your neighbors because they have to testify that you did in fact meet all the requirements of the Homestead Act.
[Brad Penner]
A patent is just one type of document stored by the government today. A new Homestead Heritage Center could give visitors access to those records.
[Todd Arrington]
What we hope to do is acquire copies of all 2-million individual homesteader case files. These are the records that were kept by the federal government for each person that established a homestead.
[Brad Penner]
Arrington says 30-million documents would be available on microfilm, arranged according to the name of the homesteader. The Heritage Center would become a research center for historians and a source of family history for visitors.
[Todd Arrington]
And they're curious about where did they live and what kind of crops did they grow? And what kind of household items did they have? And was the person a veteran? Did they have children born on the property? And all of these pieces of information are things that can be found in homestead records.
[Brad Penner]
Beatrice librarian Laureen Riedesel would love to dig into homesteading records. The Homestead attracted her to Beatrice in the first place.
[Laureen Riedesel]
I wanted to be the public library director in the town that had Homestead National Monument of America.
[Brad Penner]
Laureen admits an extraordinary fascination with homesteading.
[Laureen Riedesel]
I jokingly say sometimes I'm the poster child for homesteading.
[Brad Penner]
Homesteaders fill her family tree.
[Laureen Riedesel]
We have people from Sweden, people from Denmark, people who came through by way of Wisconsin, and people who came out from Pennsylvania. So we have the whole gammut. The Americans that came west to homestead and the emigrants that came to homestead.
I'm in Nebraska because somebody said there's free land in Nebraska and we're going to go get some of it. So for people who always wonder why did we come, or why are we where we are? That's a big part of that answer.
[Brad Penner]
With that kind of background it probably wouldn't surprise you to learn that Laureen is president of the Friends of the Homestead.
[Laureen Riedesel]
We're the people saying it's our turn. Tell this story. We won't understand who we are as a country, we won't understand America's role in the world if we don't do a better job of telling about what happened. What the Homestead Act meant, what changes it made, and how its still affecting the world today.
[Brad Penner]
The Homestead Heritage Center and other improvements at the monument are on the list of future National Park Service projects. If all goes well, funding for part of the project will be approved by Congress. Friends of the Homestead aims to raise 7-millon dollars to pay for exhibits inside the Heritage Center.
[Laureen Riedesel]
There's many, many people and there's many, many businesses that would not be here today if it weren't for the Homestead Act. I don't know that they've thought of the world that way but I'd encourage them to start right now.
[Amy Garrett]
And it made it easier for you to recite what the teacher asked you to recite. We're going to read this poem…
[Brad Penner]
At the Freeman School students from Daykin-Meridian see for themselves what class was like in he 1880s.
[Charlene Marschman]
What we teach 'em in the classroom or in a book is nothing compared to what they learn out here.
[Girl]
They hammer away 'til the busy day…
[Charlene Marshman]
They just need it to see exactly how they came… how did they get here.
[Brad Penner]
Soon, a new distance learning system will allow more students to experience the Homestead. Amy Garrett and others on the staff will use a portable camera and computer to connect with schools across the state.
[Amy Garrett]
It's just a wonderful way for us to get our message of the importance of the Homestead Act out to the students out there.
[Brad Penner]
More people are getting the message. Since Mark Engler arrived five years ago attendance has steadily grown. More than 50-thousand people visited last year. Engler hopes their plans will make the Monument a national attraction.
[Mark Engler]
I think its important to keep in mind that each of those people that were filing claims had families and this is an event that really touched millions and millions and millions of people.
[Laurene Reidesel]
A lot of people look at that and say, oh that's just Beatrice's big ball of string, that's what they show off. Well, it may be our big ball of string but this is string that connects all over the country. This is a very important big ball of string and we're proud of it and we'd like to have other people who also have a connection to this not see this as a Beatrice thing, or a southeast Nebraska thing. But see this as a national-international thing that we're just lucky enough to be the location.
[Brad Penner]
If Congress and donors come up with the money, Nebraska schoolkids will have a new Homestead National Monument to visit in about five years.
Reporting for STATEWIDE, I'm Brad Penner.