Tag: homestead

Homesteading, Kansas style


In 1873, Marquette, Kansas was settled.

Marquette is a charming Kansas town located in McPherson County. Marquette is home to the Kansas Motorcycle Museum.

By 1890, the population of Marquette was 367. Today, Marquette’s population is fewer than 1,000.

Marquette is one of a handful of Kansas municipalities where a future homeowner who chooses to relocate to Marquette could acquire a residential lot for their new home build through Kansas’s homesteading provision.

Residential lots in Marquette’s homesteading program have ranged from between 11,000 to 25,000 square feet.

Lincoln is a quaint Kansas town located in Lincoln County. Lincoln in home to Crispins Drug Store Museum.

Lincoln was settled in 1870. By 1880, Lincoln’s population was 400. In 2020, the population of Lincoln was fewer than 1,500.

In Lincoln, free land (with conditions) has been able to be conveyed to Kansas homesteaders through Lincoln’s homesteading program. The homesteaded land in Lincoln has been able to be conveyed with the condition that the homesteader builds – and lives in – a new single-family home on their homesteaded lot.

Residential lots in Lincoln’s homesteading program have ranged from between 14,000 to 35,000 square feet.

Homesteading in Marquette and Lincoln is accompanied by conditions homesteaders are required to meet.

In Lincoln, a homesteader is required to build – and live in – their new single-family home. Also, a new home built in Lincoln on a homesteaded lot is required to have a minimum of 1,300 square feet of living area.

Homesteading

Early on in American history, as settlers pushed westward across the country, land had been able to be conveyed to those early American settlers through the Homestead Act.


Provisions within the Homestead Act called for conveyed land to be transferred with one condition of land transfers being, for that land to be settled, resided upon and cultivated – I:e.: improved – by he who acquired the land.

Early American “developers” – I:e.: westward-pushing settlers – were instrumental in effectuating intent found within the Homestead Act.

Homesteading had been a federal policy in the United States through the mid-1970’s.

In 1976, when President Gerald Ford signed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, homesteading – as a federal policy – ceased to exist. The Federal Land Policy and Management Act was (and is) applicable to public land in the United States which is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.