Fewer than one percent of commuted homestead lands ever became homes

Evidence

From 1881 to 1904, twenty-​two million acres were commuted, 23 percent of the total number of homestead entries for this period. Large land holdings were built up through this “perverted use of the Homestead Act.” A Senate document later recorded that “not one in a hundred” of these commuted lands was “ever occupied as a home… . They became part of some large timber holding or a parcel of a cattle or sheep ranch.” The commuters were “usually merchants, professional people, school teachers, clerks, journeymen working at trades, cow punchers, or sheep herders.” Typically, these commuters sold their land immediately after title vested. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2418

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Homestead Act never delivered free land to ordinary settlers — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 2414; Homestead Act claims were affordable for ordinary settlers with little money down — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations: How Building a…, 332

Broader Connections

• Homestead Act claims were affordable for ordinary settlers with little money down #corroborates (0.70) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 332