Homestead National Monument of America: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Homestead National Historical Park

Regions 3, 4, & 5 Park Cultural Landscapes Program

Homestead National Monument of America landscape is located in southeastern Nebraska, approximately 40 miles south of Lincoln and about three and one-half miles northwest of Beatrice. The site is composed of three discontinuous units: the original 160-acre Daniel Freeman homestead, the 1.5-acre Freeman School site, and the recently added 16.98-acre Heritage Center. The landscape was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 at a national level of significance as the location of the first property area claimed under the Homestead Act of 1862. This legislation was created to further the ideal that the public domain of the United States should pass into the hands of small farmers, and it served as an important catalyst in Euro-American settlement, cultivation, and civilization of the West. The monument landscape is representative of this westward movement, also preserving a sample of the setting that the pioneer settlers faced. The period of significance begins with Daniel Freeman’s homestead claim on January 1, 1863 and ends when the Homestead National Monument of America was established by Congress in 1936. The landscape is significant for association with Daniel Freeman as an individual, as well as with the Homestead Act for its influence on broad historic patterns in American migration, immigration, agriculture, industry, federal land policy, interaction with native cultures, and the Western landscape. In addition, it contains archeological significance for its potential to yield further historical evidence. During the time that the Freeman family used the land for cultivation and grazing, they constructed several fences, houses, outbuildings, a windmill, a well, and other structures. By 1936, few if any built features of the homestead remained, and since 1939 the National Park Service (NPS) effort has been toward restoring the landscape to its natural appearance during the time that Freeman filed his claim. Although the landscape continues to possess characteristics and landscape features that further an understanding of the context of western homesteads, the site itself does not retain sufficient integrity to represent the homesteading period without some interpretation. The inventoried cultural landscape unit is bounded by the original parcel boundaries deeded to Daniel Freeman in 1863. It is bordered by several roads, a creek, a hedgerow, and a fence next to the Freeman Family gravesite; all of these features help enhance an understanding of prairie homesteading. The homestead was divided into approximately four 40-acre square plots of land known as the west, middle, east, and north forty. As noted in the National Register nomination, Homestead National Monument of America “evokes the advance and the passing of the frontier that marked the growth of American agrarian culture for some four centuries.” In addition to the prairie restoration that preserves the appearance of the historic landscape, the current site contains a collection of NPS buildings in the northwest forty including the education center, an administrative/maintenance and staff residence complex, and landscape features.

Homestead National Monument of America: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Homestead National Historical Park

Series