It's been 140 years since the Homestead Act sent waves of settlers across the Great Plains, staking claim to parcels of land 160 acres in size. About 2 million people claimed more than 270 million ...

In 1863, Scott Harker and his family resettled from the Creek Territory, in what is now Oklahoma, to just outside the brand new city of Denver. Under president-elect Abraham Lincoln’s new Homestead ...

At the end of this year in which election results reinserted immigration into the political conversation, remember that 2012 is the 150th anniversary of “the first comprehensive immigration law.” This ...

“If you own a home, and it is your primary residence, one way to protect it is to file a homestead," O’Donnell said. "The Homestead law provides a homeowner with limited protection against the forced ...

On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, a program that offered government-held land to small farmers. The act, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863, in the midst of ...

Kendall Hodgson, left, and Ed Hodgson, first cousins, in front of the Hodgson homestead near Little River, Kan. LITTLE RIVER, Kan. – Before this town was here, before the railroads were here, before a ...

President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act of 1862, opening up 270 million acres of public domain land for settlers to “prove up.” A filing fee of $10 and a $2 commission to the land ...

A homestead exemption is a law that protects a certain amount of equity in an individual’s primary residence from the claims of his or her creditors or, in some states like Florida, the amount of the ...

BEATRICE -- The relationship between the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Civil War is complicated and interlocked, says Blake Bell, historian for Homestead National Monument of America. Bell maintains ...