In the Beginning · Homestead Act and First Landowners

McFarland opens the Eddyville account with the Homestead Act of 1862. The law allowed a person who was at least twenty-one years old, or the head of a family, to claim up to a quarter section of land after paying a ten-dollar filing fee. If the claimant lived on the land for five years, final patent could be granted.

The coming of the railroad, along with the Homestead Act, brought many families west. First landowners in the Eddyville vicinity were registered at the Dawson County Court House prior to and including 1890.

Early names from the late 1870s through 1890 included Andrew J. McCann, Saulsbury Houchin, Michael Dailey, William Place, James Mellott, William Little, Jacob J. Davis, William J. Lawson, John Brandt, Carlos C. Burr, Henry Hedges, Charles H. Line, Francis Colton, John Jay Shay, James H. Edmisten, Albert D. Roberts, Cornelius S. Munhall, Aaron Webb, Thomas O’Mara, George B. Darr, Patrick McMahan, David Bohner, Benjamin Gomme, Mary L. Knickerbocker, Charles W. Blakeslee, and James W. Miller.

A separate note records that others were homesteading in the area before deeds were finalized. That list includes John Wiley, George Smith, William T. S. Line, William O’Mara, G. H. Marshall, George Kennicutt, A. B. Walters, W. A. Bruce, William Kopf, Nick Kopf, and G. H. Blakeslee.

Our Town · Dolores McFarland · 2000