County of marker: Harding County
Location of marker: Canam Hwy (US-85/SD-20), Centennial Park, Buffalo
Marker erected: July 3, 2009
Marker erected by: Harding County Chamber of Commerce
Marker Text:
The Homesteaders
Shortly after the Pony Express disbanded, an important event occurred, which had a direct and significant effect on the Dakota Territory. It was the passage of the Homestead Act o May 20, 1862, which ultimately was to bring thousands of settlers to Dakota in quest of free land.
The Act provided that any person over 21, who was the head of a family, and either a citizen of an alien who intended to become a citizen, could obtain the title to 160 acres of public land if he lived on the land for five years and improved it. Or, the settler could pay $1.25 per acre in place of the residence requirement.
The sponsors of this law believed that land was worthless before it was improved, and that persons who converted unoccupied land into farms should not have to pay for the land. They also hoped that the law would help workers obtain homesteads (small farms) of their own.
The homesteaders were hardy souls willing to risk the challenges of the prairie in exchange for free land. However, despite the availability of seemingly endless farm acres, Dakota did not get off to stampeding start. Life was never easy even under the best of circumstances for the homesteaders. The dogged persistence of those who prevailed despite the elements, the insects, the Indians, the isolation, the frigid winters, scorching summers, drought, floods, prairie fires, hunting failures and other discouraging factors, began to develop a special kind of Dakota personality - an independent obstinacy: a quiet, almost self-effacing pride in having overcome the adversities when others couldn't.
The Homestead Days
by Ella Pond Pugh
Away out here in a homestead shack,
Many a mile off the beaten track,
We plowed and planted the fields of brown,
And waited for showers that never came down,
The sky smiled on serenely blue,
And never a drop of rain, 'tis true.
That's life on a homestead.
Away out here in a homestead shack,
Many a mile off the beaten track,
The wind sweeps by with a long-drawn sigh,
The night clouds pile up in the western sky,
And darkness comes down with a noiseless tread,
And coyotes howl as I go to bed.
That's the life on a homestead.
Away out here in a homestead shack,
Many a mile off the beaten track,
The rattlers crawl out in the sunny spring,
And the bobolinks sit on the sage and sing,
Where the meadowlark sits in her hood-like nest,
And hovers her young 'neath her yellow breast.
That's life on a homestead.
Away out here in a homestead shack,
Many a mile off the beaten track,
The Blizzard howls and passes in rage,
Across the stretches of cactus and sage,
Where the north wind sighs with a long-drawn moan,
Around the shack that I call home.
That's life on a homestead.
Away out here in a homestead shack,
Many a mile off the beaten track,
We have time to visit and time to live,
And our needs are few and primitive,
We have freedom of spirit and freedom of soul,
And a hope that some day we'll reach our goal.
That's life on a Homestead.