President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law. It provided 160 acres of public land to any man or woman over the age of twenty-one willing to develop it for five years. It came into effect on January 1, 1863. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Joseph Nathan Kane, ed., Famous First Facts (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1981), 304.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Lawmaking/Litigating
