First Free Homestead
  The Free Homestead Act, was passed by Congress May 20, 1862, and the act became effective Jan. 1, 1863.
Daniel Freeman was a soldier in the Union Army when the homestead act was signed. While on a furlough he selected a site on Cub Creek in Gage County upon which to file his homestead claim. He arrived at Brownville, Nebraska, the nearest land office on December 31, 1862.
Many others had also gone to Brownville to file on land, but because of the fact that Daniel Freeman's furlough expired on January 1st it was arranged that he be allowed to make the first filing. By special consent the land office was opened at midnight and was kept open for a few minutes for Daniel Freeman to file his application for the first homestead in the United States.
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This enabled him, following the close of the war in 1865 to bring his bride to Gage county and to build a home on the first homestead.
This homestead is still today in the hands of the Freeman family and in March, 1936, a bill was passed and approved by President Roosevelt and provided that this tract shall be designated "The Homestead National Monument of America." The department of interior in this act was authorized to acquire said tract, and make the necessary buildings and improvements to make it a suitable monument to retain for posterity a proper memorial emblematical of the hardships and the pioneer life through which the early settlers passed through in the settlement, cultivation and civilization of the great West.
Nebraska is not only the state of the first homestead, but the state in which more homesteads were acquired than any other state in the Union. -- Nebraska History Magazine.
1886
1936
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