Putting Down Roots in Nebraska
 

The NRCS Manhattan, Kansas Plant Materials Center (PMC) and the National Park Service are partnering to construct a new visitor’s center at Homestead National Monument in Beatrice, Nebraska. The Manhattan PMC will specify local cultivars or source identified releases from neighboring States and provide technical assistance and seed for landscaping around the visitors center using local commercial seed vendors for the project.

The 211-acre Homestead National Monument, in keeping with the spirit of the Homestead Act, covers no undisturbed prairie other than a small area around the site of a one-room period school house.

The Manhattan PMC also worked on producing seed and transplants for the Agate Fossil Beds National Monument located in western Nebraska. Throughout the country, the Plant Materials Program is assisting many national parks to re-vegetate and retain the genetic integrity of native plants found within the parks.

The Homestead Act of 1862 has been called one the most important pieces of legislation in the history of the United States. Signed into law in 1862 by Abraham Lincoln after the secession of Southern States, this Act turned over vast amounts of the public domain to private citizens. A homesteader had only to be the head of a household and at least 21 years of age to claim a 160-acre parcel of land. Settlers from all walks of life including newly arrived immigrants, farmers without land of their own from the East, single women, and former slaves claimed land parcels under the Act.
Your contact is Richard Wynia, NRCS Manhattan, Kansas PMC Manager, at 785-539-8761.