Homestead and Kinkaid Act - Abraham Lincoln and Moses Kinkaid

[Matt Macoubrie]

Liz,

The main goal of the Kinkaid Act was to allow cattle and ranching to develop within Nebraska. There are some irrigable lands within the Sandhills of Nebraska, but not very much, and it was much easier for many ranchers to have more land in the Sandhills. If you google Nebraska Sandhills, you will see that it is literally sand, with a little prarie. I would not consider it a desert because there are many lakes up there and flowing rivers. As for your question about "blooming", the answer is yes and no. The prairies get prettier, but nothing truly blooms because all that grows out there is grass, and when drought occurred, it was not too big of an issue, because they had at minimum 640 acres of land and they were not used to irrigating that much because the grass did not need it as much as the crops did. Now, in some cases, there were wildfires that destroyed some of the prairie's but for the most part, the land that the ranchers were on was the same way it was prior to moving on it. I personally don't recall reading anything about the dust bowl, nowhere near as bad as it was in Kansas. Most of the land out in the Sandhills is sand, not so much dirt which is lighter in its composite, which allows it to "fly". Today the land is being used just as it was back in 1904. There are hundreds and thousands of ranchers up there that are still living on the land that was given to their ancestors. Up in North and Northwest Nebraska, many people are either farmers or ranchers, which differs completely from where I am from where we are industrious and more modern. I hope that answered your questions! I love when people ask me these type of questions!!!