Part 6

Homesteading in the Dakotas

The last frontier to fall before the westward march of civilization was that of the farmer. Farmers were beginning to plow the virgin prairie soil even before the Civil War, but after the conflict the line of farming communities in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Dakotas began to move relentlessly westward. The railroads were given large tracts of public land which they sold to settlers. Many Civil War veterans took up free land after their discharge, as provided for in the Homestead Act of 1862. The following selections illustrate the farming frontier on the plains.

O. E. Rölvaag Pictures the Norwegian Settlers

O. E. Rölvaag, the author of the following selection, grew up in a Norwegian fishing village, but at the age of twenty he emigrated to America and worked for his uncle on a Dakota farm. Later he worked his way through St. Olaf College and eventually became a professor of Norwegian literature at his alma mater. His excellent novel, _Giants in the Earth_, from which the following pages are taken, describes the life of Norwegian farmers in the Dakota Territory. As the novel opens, several Norwegian families are taking up homesteads. Before they make their first crops and can afford real houses, they have to live in sod houses, which are really cellars dug in the prairie and roofed over with sod.

On the side of a hill, which sloped gently away toward the southeast and followed with many windings a creek that wormed its way across the prairie, stood Hans Olsa, laying turf. He was building a sod house. The walls had now risen breast-high; in its half-finished condition, the structure resembled more a bulwark against some enemy than anything intended to be a human habitation. And the great heaps of cut sod, piled up in each corner, might well have been the stores of ammunition for defense of the stronghold.

For a man of his strength and massive build, his motions were unusually quick and agile; but he worked by fits and starts today. At times he stopped altogether; in these pauses he would straighten himself up and draw his sleeve with a quick stroke across his troubled face; with each stroke the sleeve would come away damper; and standing so, he would fix his gaze intently on the prairie to the eastward. His eyes had wandered so often now over the stretch of land lying before them, that they were familiar with every tussock and hollow.... [_The spaced periods in this selection do not indicate omitted material but are the author’s own punctuation._] No—nothing in sight yet!... He would resume his task, as if to make up for lost time, and work hard for a spell; only to forget himself once more, pause involuntarily, and stand inert and abstracted, gazing off into the distance.

Beyond the house a tent had been pitched; a wagon was drawn up close beside it. On the ground outside of the tent stood a stove, a couple of chairs, and a few other rough articles of furniture. A stout, healthy-looking woman, whose face radiated an air of simple wisdom and kindliness, was busy preparing the midday meal. She sang to herself as she worked. A ten-year-old girl, addressed by the woman as Sofie, was helping her. Now and then the girl would take up the tune and join in the singing.

Less than a quarter of a mile away, in a southeasterly direction, a finished sod house rose on the slope of the hill. Smoke was winding up from it at this moment. This house, which had been built the previous fall, belonged to Syvert Tönseten.

Some distance north from the place where Hans Olsa had located, two other sod houses were under construction; but a hillock lay between, so that he could not see them from where he stood. There the two Solum boys had driven down their stakes and had begun building. Tönseten’s completed house, and the other three half-finished ones, marked the beginning of the settlement on Spring Creek.

The woman who had been bustling about preparing the meal, now called to her husband that dinner was ready—he must come at once! He answered her, straightened up for the hundredth time, wiped his hands on his trousers, and stood for a moment gazing off eastward.... No use to look—not a soul in sight yet!... He sighed heavily, and walked with slow steps toward the tent, his eyes on the ground.

It was light and airy inside the tent, but stifling hot, because of the unobstructed sunlight beating down upon it. Two beds were ranged along the wall, both of them homemade; a big emigrant chest stood at the head of each. Nails had been driven into the centre pole of the tent, on which hung clothing; higher up a crosspiece, securely fastened, was likewise hung with clothes. Two of the walls were lined with furniture; on these pieces the dishes were displayed, all neatly arranged.

A large basin of water stood on a chair just inside the tent door. Hans Olsa washed his face and hands; then he came out and sat down on the ground, where his wife had spread the table. It was so much cooler outside. The meal was all ready; both mother and daughter had been waiting for him.

“I suppose you haven’t seen any signs of them yet?” his wife asked at last.

“No—nothing at all!”

“Can you imagine what has become of them?”

“The Lord forgive us—if I only knew!”

They are waiting for Per Hansa and his family, whose wagon broke down, to reach the homestead site. The Hansas arrive soon, and the next selection describes them the day after, as the father goes to town to register his claim and the mother wonders fearfully what the future holds for them on the empty, lonely prairie.

Early the next morning Per Hansa and one of the Solum boys set out on the fifty-two mile journey to Sioux Falls, where Per Hansa filed an application for the quarter-section of land which lay to the north of Hans Olsa’s. To confirm the application, he received a temporary deed to the land. The deed was made out in the name of _Peder Benjamin Hansen_; it contained a description of the land, the conditions which he agreed to fulfil in order to become the owner, and the date, _June 6, 1873_.

Sörine [_Hans Olsa’s wife_] wanted Beret and the children to stay with her during the two days that her husband would be away; but she refused the offer with thanks. If they were to get ready a home for the summer, she said, she would have to take hold of matters right away.

... “For the summer?” exclaimed the other woman, showing her astonishment. “What about the winter, then?”

Beret saw that she had uttered a thought which she ought to have kept to herself; she evaded the question as best she could.

During the first day, both she and the boys found so much to do that they hardly took time to eat. They unloaded both wagons, set up the stove, and carried out the table. Then Beret arranged their bedroom in the larger wagon. With all the things taken out it was quite roomy in there; it made a tidy bedroom when everything had been put in order. The boys thought this work great fun, and she herself found some relief in it for her troubled mind. But something vague and intangible hovering in the air would not allow her to be wholly at ease; she had to stop often and look about, or stand erect and listen.... Was that a sound she heard? ... All the while, the thought that had struck her yesterday when she had first got down from the wagon, stood vividly before her mind: here there was nothing even to hide behind!... When the room was finished, and a blanket had been hung up to serve as a door, she seemed a little less conscious of this feeling. But back in the recesses of her mind it still was there....

After they had milked the cow, eaten their evening porridge, and talked awhile to the oxen, she took the boys and And-Ongen and strolled away from camp. With a common impulse, they went toward the hill; when they had reached the summit, Beret sat down and let her gaze wander aimlessly around.... In a certain sense, she had to admit to herself, it was lovely up here. The broad expanse stretching away endlessly in every direction, seemed almost like the ocean—especially now, when darkness was falling. It reminded her strongly of the sea, and yet it was very different.

... This formless prairie had no heart that beat, no waves that sang, no soul that could be touched ... or cared....

The infinitude surrounding her on every hand might not have been so oppressive, might even have brought her a measure of peace, if it had not been for the deep silence, which lay heavier here than in a church. Indeed, what was there to break it? She had passed beyond the outposts of civilization; the nearest dwelling places of men were far away. Here no warbling of birds rose on the air, no buzzing of insects sounded; even the wind had died away; the waving blades of grass that trembled to the faintest breath now stood erect and quiet, as if listening, in the great hush of the evening.... All along the way, coming out, she had noticed this strange thing: the stillness had grown deeper, the silence more depressing, the farther west they journeyed; it must have been over two weeks now since she had heard a bird sing! Had they travelled into some nameless, abandoned region? Could no living thing exist out here, in the empty, desolate, endless wastes of green and blue?... How _could_ existence go on, she thought, desperately? If life is to thrive and endure, it must at least have something to hide behind!...

The children were playing boisterously a little way off. What a terrible noise they made! But she had better let them keep on with their play, as long as they were happy.... She sat perfectly quiet, thinking of the long, oh, so interminably long march that they would have to make, back to the place where human beings dwelt. It would be small hardship for her, of course, sitting in the wagon; but she pitied Per Hansa and the boys—and then the poor oxen!... He certainly would soon find out for himself that a home for men and women and children could never be established in this wilderness.... And how could she bring new life into the world out here!...

Slowly her thoughts began to centre on her husband; they grew warm and tender as they dwelt on him. She trembled as they came....

But only for a brief while. As her eyes darted nervously here and there, flitting from object to object and trying to pierce the purple dimness that was steadily closing in, a sense of desolation so profound settled upon her that she seemed unable to think at all. It would not do to gaze any longer at the terror out there, where everything was turning to grim and awful darkness.... She threw herself back in the grass and looked up into the heavens. But darkness and infinitude lay there, also—the sense of utter desolation still remained.... Suddenly, for the first time, she realized the full extent of her loneliness, the dreadful nature of the fate that had overtaken her. Lying there on her back, and staring up into the quiet sky across which the shadows of night were imperceptibly creeping, she went over in her mind every step of their wanderings, every mile of the distance they had travelled since they had left home.

The Land Rush in Oklahoma

The history of Oklahoma contains two of the most fascinating episodes in the Westward Movement. These were the land rushes of 1889 and 1893, when the government threw open several million acres of land to settlers on a first-come, first-served basis. The opening of these tracts came at a time when choice land throughout the plains states already had been taken up, and because the openings were well publicized throughout the country, the competition for farms and town lots was tremendous. In the following report Hamilton Wicks describes the boom psychology and his own part in the race for free land in 1889. Guthrie, Oklahoma, where Wicks claimed a town lot, was on the route of the Henry Ellsworth and Washington Irving expedition in 1832.

Hamilton Wicks Races to Guthrie

And now the hour of twelve was at hand, and every one on the _qui vive_ for the bugle blast that would dissolve the chain of enchantment hitherto girding about this coveted land. Many of the “boomers” were mounted on high-spirited and fleet-footed horses, and had ranged themselves along the territorial line, scarcely restrained even by the presence of the troops of cavalry from taking summary possession. The better class of wagons and carriages ranged themselves in line with the horsemen, and even here and there mule teams attached to canvas-covered vehicles stood in the front ranks, with the reins and whip grasped by the “boomers’” wives. All was excitement and expectation. Every nerve was on tension and every muscle strained.

Suddenly the air was pierced with the blast of a bugle. Hundreds of throats echoed the sound with shouts of exultation. The quivering limbs of saddled steeds, no longer restrained by the hands that held their bridles, bounded forward, simultaneously into the “beautiful land” of Oklahoma; and wagons and carriages and buggies and prairie schooners and a whole congregation of curious equipages joined in this unparalleled race, where every starter was bound to win a prize—the “Realization Stakes” of home and prosperity.

We, the spectators, witnessed the spectacle with most intense interest. Away dashed the thoroughbreds, the bronchos, the pintos, and the mustangs at a breakneck pace, across the uneven surface of the prairie. It was amazing to witness the recklessness of those cowboy riders. They jumped obstacles. They leaped ditches. They cantered with no diminution of speed through waterpools; and when they came to a ravine too wide to leap, down they would go with a rush, and up the other side with a spurt of energy, to scurry once more like mad over the level plain.

The occupants of our train now became absorbed in their own fate.... It was rather hard pulling for our engine until we reached the apex of the Cimarron Valley, spread out in picturesque beauty at our very feet. Our train now rushed along the downgrade with the speed of a limited express crossing the fine bridge that spans the Cimarron with a roar, and swinging around the hills that intervened between the river and the Guthrie town site with the rapidity of a swallow’s flight. All that there was of Guthrie, the now famous “magic city,” on April 22, at 1:30 P.M., when the first train from the north drew up at the station and unloaded its first instalment of settlers, was a water-tank, a small station-house, a shanty for the Wells Fargo Express, and a Government Land Office.

I remember throwing my blankets out of the car window the instant the train stopped at the station. I remember tumbling after them through the self-same window. Then I joined the wild scramble for a town lot up the sloping hillside at a pace discounting any “go-as-you-please” race. There were several thousand people converging on the same plot of ground, each eager for a town lot which was to be acquired without cost and without price, each solely dependent on his own efforts, and animated by a spirit of fair play and good humor. The race was not over when you reached the particular lot you were content to select for your possession. The contest still was who should drive their stakes first, who would erect their tents soonest, and then, who would quickest build a little wooden shanty. It reminded me of playing blind-man’s bluff. One did not know how far to go before stopping. It was hard to tell when it was best to stop; and it was a puzzle whether to turn to the right hand or the left.

I found myself, without exactly knowing why, about midway between the government building and depot. It occurred to me that a street would probably run past the depot. I accosted a man who looked like a deputy, with a piece of white card in his hands, and asked if this was to be a street along here.

“Yes,” he replied. “We are laying off four corner lots right here for a lumber yard.”

“Is this the corner where I stand?” I inquired.

“Yes,” he responded, approaching me.

“Then I claim this corner lot!” I said with decision, as I jammed my location stick in the ground and hammered it securely home with my heel....

An angry altercation [_argument_] ensued, but I stoutly maintained my position and my rights. I proceeded at once to unstrap a small folding-cot I brought with me, and by standing it on its end made a tolerable center-pole for a tent. I then threw a couple of my blankets over the pole, and staked them securely into the ground on either side. Thus I had a claim that was unjumpable because of substantial improvements.

As night approached I strolled up on the eminence near the land office, and surveyed the wonderful cyclorama spread out before me on all sides. Ten thousand people had “squatted” upon a square mile of virgin prairie that first afternoon, and as the myriad of white tents suddenly appeared upon the face of the country, it was as though a vast flock of huge white-winged birds had just settled down upon the hillsides and in valleys. Here indeed was _a city laid out and populated in half a day_. Thousands of campfires sparkled upon the dark bosom of the prairie as far as the eye could reach.

I will never forget the first night of occupancy of this army. Unlike the hosts of the Assyrians that descended on the Israelites, their tents were not silent. On the contrary, there was a fusilade of shots on all sides from Winchesters, and Colts, and Remingtons, disturbing the stillness of the night, mingled with halloos, and shoutings, and the rebel yell, and the imitated warwhoop of the savage. I expected on the morrow to see the prairie strewn with gory corpses, but not a single corpse appeared, and I was not slow in making up my mind that nine-tenths of all the shots were fired in a mere wanton spirit of bravado to intimidate a few such nervous tenderfeet as myself.

I was witness of all this magical municipal development, and could scarcely realize the miracle that was unfolding before me. The wealth-creating force that was displayed in the building up of Guthrie can not be better illustrated than in the fact that lots which had no value prior to April 22 sold in the center of the business district as high as five hundred dollars within a week thereafter, and a number changed hands before the expiration of the first month for one thousand, five hundred dollars each.

Transcriber’s Notes

--Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected a few palpable typos, leaving period spellings unchanged.

--In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.

--Added subheadings in the text to match entries in the Table of Contents.

--Added captions to illustrations based on the attributions in front matter.