Homestead National Historical Park facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Homestead National Historical Park |
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 Homestead National Historical Park
Location in Nebraska
Homestead National Historical Park
Location in the United States
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| Location | Gage County, Nebraska, USA |
| Nearest city | Beatrice, NE |
| Area | 211 acres (85 ha) |
| Authorized | March 19, 1936 |
| Visitors | 123,400 (in 2017) |
| Governing body | National Park Service |
| Website | Homestead National Historical Park |
Homestead National Historical Park is a special place in Nebraska. It is part of the National Park System. Before 2021, it was called the Homestead National Monument of America. This park celebrates the Homestead Act of 1862.
The Homestead Act was a law that let people claim land. If you were qualified, you could get up to 160 acres (about 0.65 square kilometers) of government land. To keep the land, you had to live on it for five years. You also had to farm it and make improvements. This law helped move a huge amount of land from public to private hands. About 270 million acres (1.1 million square kilometers) were claimed.
The park is located near Beatrice in Gage County. It sits on some of the very first land claimed under the Homestead Act. This site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.
Contents
Homestead Heritage Center and Education Center
The Homestead Heritage Center opened in 2007. It has many exhibits that show how the Homestead Act changed America. You can learn about how it affected immigration and farming. It also covers how it impacted native tribes. You can see how it shaped the tallgrass prairie and land policies.
The building's roof looks like a plow moving through the ground. The parking lot is exactly one acre (about 4,000 square meters) in size. There is also a separate Education Center. This center offers science and social studies lessons. These lessons can be shared with classrooms across the United States. They use distance-learning technology.
Tallgrass Prairie
The park has 100 acres (about 0.4 square kilometers) of tallgrass prairie. This area has been restored to look like the original ecosystem. This type of prairie once covered much of the central United States. But homesteaders plowed most of it away.
The National Park Service has worked for over 60 years to restore this prairie. They use regular mowing, haying, and controlled burns. This is the oldest prairie restoration project in the National Park System. The park has about 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers) of hiking trails. These trails go through the prairie and woodlands near Cub Creek. You can even use all-terrain wheelchairs on these trails.
Palmer-Epard Cabin
The Palmer-Epard Cabin was built in 1867 by George W. Palmer. It was made from different kinds of wood. The cabin is 14 by 16 feet (about 4.3 by 4.9 meters). It shows how homes were built in the area back then. Palmer lived in this cabin with his wife and ten children.
Later, a small addition was built onto the back of the cabin. The Palmer family lived there until 1895. Then, it was sold to their nephews. A few years later, the farm was sold to Lawrence and Ida Mumford Epard. They lived in the cabin for almost 40 years. The cabin was given to the park in 1950. It has been moved and fixed up several times since then.
Freeman School
The Freeman School was built with thick red bricks. It had carved limestone details. This school was used for a very long time, from 1872 to 1967. It was the longest continuously used one-room school in Nebraska.
Besides being a school, it was also used as a church. People voted there, and it was a community center. Groups held debates and other events there. The National Park Service has restored the school. It now looks like it did in the 1870s.
The Freeman School was part of an important court case. This case was about the separation of church and state. In 1899, Daniel Freeman sued the school board. A teacher, Edith Beecher, was praying, reading the Bible, and singing gospel songs in class. Freeman wanted her to stop. In 1902, the Nebraska Supreme Court decided that the teacher's actions went against the state's rules.
How the Park Was Created
Daniel Freeman was born in Ohio. He was the first person to claim land under the Homestead Act. He filed his claim on January 1, 1863. Freeman later claimed he was the first homesteader in the whole country. He eventually owned over 1,000 acres (about 4 square kilometers) of land. He became an important person in Gage County.
As early as 1884, Freeman suggested making his homestead a memorial. After he passed away in 1908, people in Beatrice wanted to protect his land as a national park. It took many years for this to happen. In the 1920s, Senator George W. Norris suggested creating a museum there. It would show old farming tools.
In 1934, people in Beatrice formed a group to push for the park. In 1935, Senator Norris and Congressman Henry C. Luckey introduced a bill. This bill aimed to create the Homestead National Monument of America. It became law in March 1936. The government bought the land in 1938.
Not much development happened at the park until the 1950s. The National Park Service acquired the Palmer-Epard cabin. They also built a visitor center as part of their Mission 66 program. This program helped improve national parks. The monument was renamed Homestead National Historical Park in 2021.
