THE FRONTIER
In American history, the frontier was the westernmost area of
settlement at any given time in the expansion of the nation.
Historians assume that the process of extending the frontier westward
began in 1607 with the settlement of Jamestown and ended around 1890,
when there was no longer any new land for homesteaders.
Frontier settlers moved from the Atlantic coast across 3,000
miles of wilderness, deserts, and mountains until they were finally
stopped by the Pacific Ocean. This advance averaged 10 miles a year,
but in actuality movement progressed by successive waves and at a
very uneven rate. Geography and hostile Indians generally determined
the boundaries of a particular frontier region. By 1820, all the
lands east of the Mississippi had been carved into separate states or
territories. During the next three decades, a wave of settlers moved
beyond the Mississippi to the edge of the arid plains.
With the discovery of gold in California in 1848, it altered the
pattern of westward migration, as hordes of settlers and prospectors
passed through the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains, and the Great Basin
to the very edge of the Pacific Ocean. By 1860, the line separating
the settled region from the unoccupied zones had moved back to the
Rockies.
During the post-Civil War years, cattlemen moved onto the Great
Plains from Texas, and farmers, or nesters, poured in from the
Mississippi Valley. By 1880 the settled area included northern
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Black Hills, and the
remainder of the nation's heartland was quickly being inhabited. When
the good land became scarce and the population of a particular region
reached a certain level, the frontier line pushed forward. Much
depended upon the transportation routes, hostility of the Indians,
location of river valleys, fertility of the soil, or economic
conditions at home. As settlers pushed deeper into the wilderness,
they invariably left vast unoccupied regions in between.
In addition to the trappers, miners, and cattlemen, many other
specific groups of people contributed to the development of the
frontier--explorers; missionaries; soldiers; builders of turnpikes,
railroads, and canals; land speculators; and Indians. But perhaps
most significant was the farmer. Wherever farmers appeared, they
changed the face of the land, destroying forever its maiden
characteristics and pushing settlements to the edge of the
wilderness. Whereas furs, minerals, and grass had attracted other
pioneers, the rich soils of the river valleys and prairies attracted
the farmers.
For three centuries, most Americans lived within easy reach of
cheap land. They often made no attempt to buy it even at $1.25 an
acre, but simply built a log cabin or sod house anywhere on the
public domain they chose to squat. In time they cleared a spot large
enough for crops and a garden to support their families and even to
produce a surplus for sale. They built roads, laid out towns, and
established churches and schools.
As the countryside began to fill up, many settlers sold their
homes and land and moved farther west to start the process all over
again. Six or seven moves during one's lifetime was not unusual. As
one region emerged from the frontier stage, another entered it. The
government of each new frontier area derived elements from the
regions just left, and each move westward contributed to this process
of change and growth.
A number of factors lured men and women to new frontiers:
worn-out land and other economic impediments at home; available
roads, canals, riverboats, and later railroads; and the dream of
adventure and romance. Moving toward the setting sun became a
compulsive urge, and once an individual caught the fever, no logical
argument against pulling up stakes could change his mind. To millions
of Americans the frontier was a place to go to, simply because it was
there. The fertile soil, abundant game, and lack of restrictions
constituted the stuff of dreams.
In its frontier days, America possessed almost limitless natural
resources, and the government distributed those resources liberally.
Congress set the pattern in 1796 with a minimum reserved price for
land. This principle remained in effect, theoretically at least,
until the Preemption Act of 1841, which allowed squatters to purchase
the land they already occupied at a base price of $1.25 an acre for
160 acres. The so-called log-cabin legislation eased the way for
passage of the Homestead Act of 1862. Under this act, title to a
quarter section of land could be obtained by paying a small fee and
establishing the claim by occupying the land for five years.
The Homestead Act has been called, "a wager by the federal
government of 160 acres of land against a man's ability to live and
survive on it for five years." In the East, where rain is plentiful,
a 160-acre farm was considered more than adequate, but a farmer on
the Great Plains needed two to four times that for extensive
agriculture, and he needed several thousand acres if he was a
rancher.
The situation was worsened by certain congressional amendments to
the act, which inadvertently allowed speculators to take advantage of
various loopholes and acquire extraordinarily large holdings of the
best land. As a result, many settlers were forced to buy from the
railroads and other speculators, and the full intent of the Homestead
Act was never realized.
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