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Easterners Seek
Homes in West


During the period from 1875 to 1890, thousands of home seekers from eastern states poured into western Nebraska to take homesteads. First settlement was made along streams, which would give two of the most important necessities, water and fuel.
But with the close of the panic in the early ‘70's and the building of railroads, the regions on the uplands between the streams became inviting and this influx of eastern settlers begin to make their homestead filings on the land on the uplands.
The first settlement in the Farnam community was made in 1883, and the next three or four years, saw nearly all of the land homesteaded and settled up in this vicinity.
The building of the railroads opened up new possibilities, giving cheap transportation, and thus the country was soon dotted by towns along the steel rails, which crossed the great western plains.
The railroads gave the settlers the benefits of securing the needed machinery, windmills, building materials, fencing materials and necessities of live, which enabled them to till the soil, build homes and tap the great water supply, laying beneath the land, two and three hundred feet, thus the necessity for water was overcome.
While the railroads were being constructed across the great plains, many changes created a demand for the land of the western part of our state, and lead to its settlement.
Principally among the reasons, which lead to settlement of this region, coupled with the construction of the railroads were:
Dissatisfaction with conditions at home, and the desire to try a new area.
The removal of the Indians from most of the Nebraska territory.
The raising of land values, accompanying the settlement and improvement, attracted attention of speculators and promoters.
Railroads offered low freight rates to the West, thus encouraging settlement, and flooded the eastern states and Europe with pamphlets, praising the new area, picturing it as the Second Promised Land.
After the Civil War many soldiers went west to seek employment on railroad construction or take cheap lands.
The Panic of 1873 caused many desolate people of east of the Mississippi to move west and start over again.
The Homestead, Pre-emption and Tree Claim Acts, made land easily obtainable.
The manufacture of such things as barbed wire, well drills, well casing and labor-saving machinery, enabled the pioneer to overcome the handicaps of this area.
The production of good crops in eastern Nebraska consequently people believed that good crops could be grown in western Nebraska.
A wet cycle in the rainfall of Nebraska started in 1870 and lasted for the next fifteen years or more, which led people to believe that this change in climate would be permanent.
1886 1936

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