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this morning we're gonna go
to homestead national monument in
beatrice
we're here you know visiting our family
and
thought we could do something different
and found the homestead national
monument which
seemed like a really interesting place
to visit so yeah um
kind of excited for it actually yeah
it's
um we told our cousin we were going and
she's like oh you're gonna love it
so i guess she's been there when we were
eating dinner last night in downtown
beatrice the waitress was like oh so you
guys are gonna go to the homestead
national monument
so yeah i guess it's a big thing in
beatrice i didn't even know this existed
until a month ago yeah
but i mean the homestead act is a huge
huge um
thing that got passed in the u.s a long
time ago that's pretty prominent so i
can see why it's significant and why
they're
you know they're proud of it that it's
here so
yeah uh we're making a quick pit stop at
walmart i have to get something and then
we'll be heading there it's just a short
ten minute drive from where we're
staying
so yeah and after that we're going to go
to the farm
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i wasn't expecting this but
we actually have to go on a dirt road
to reach this homestead site i mean i
know like uh when we go on the farm
we have to you know go through some dirt
roads but i wasn't expecting dirt roads
to go to the national monument honestly
yeah this is interesting
we're going through a dirt road but then
we're back on the highway oh there it is
right there yeah
that's so weird like that was pretty is
there not a road to go that way
like it's not i guess that was a
shortcut continue on to highway 4 west
then arrive at your destination
education center stream of the education
center apparently
well doesn't homestead
so we just went into the education
center for the homestead
national monument site and i actually
highly recommend it because
the one of the um the staff members
there
personally came out and like told us the
history about the homestead act and all
that so i thought that was
really interesting and very personal
very inviting
yeah hi like he seemed excited about his
job which i like
yeah and the most interesting
thing that we learned was that he said
most of the immigrants around here
that started um you know getting their
own land was
germans and czechoslovakians which is
crazy because
our grandma was czechoslovakian and our
grandpa was german
so high high chance that they were one
of the first ones to get land here
not them but they're probably like yeah
they're yeah graham
father father we'll see we'll see
but there is a chance that they could be
part of that
um and also the reason why it's in
beatrice is because
um daniel freeman i believe uh started
he was the one who claimed the land
first he was the very first one
very first one within this homestead act
to do it and it was in beatrice and
that's why the homestead
national monument of america is located
in beatrice nebraska because that was
one of my questions like why
are there yeah when there's a bunch of
them in the u.s yeah
where the homestead act was initiated
but that makes sense now why they did it
here
so now we're gonna head over to the main
site
which we passed earlier so after um he
gave us a little orientation on the
history
they he told us about um this little
exhibit they just put up i don't know
how long it's gonna be up but it's uh
a lot of quilt art that they did um
focusing
on the woman's rights and like the
strong woman that made history
um nellie bly was one of them we just
learned about and then
out back you could do a trail there they
have a couple of trails that you could
do that's about
one's like less than a mile the other
one's about a mile but it's really
pretty back there and you can kind of
see
um some of the sites where daniel
freeman uh
sanchez land planet is land and all that
but the
the rangers at the cabin's not actually
out there yeah it's just like a sign or
something like yeah
freeman brick house oh we had a cabin
and a brick house
but i mean 160 acres i'm like how big is
that so he said it was
one and a half miles by one and a half
so that's quite a bit of a
that's quite a bit land yeah so
here it is homestead national monument
of america
they have a cute bench swinging out
front and some
more farming equipment looks like
well sadly our ancestors
don't look like they're part of the
homestead act
i've been searching um with our family
tree names and nothing's come up
because we're able to go back six
generations so
we were able to go back to 1824 in our
family
history um and we put in that name and
it doesn't
come up anywhere so although if we put
in names like just for
genealogy their names come up but as far
as for the homestead act
it doesn't they don't come up so
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well this is the actual
homestead act uh papers so if you do
happen to find that your family
um you know as was part of the homestead
act
you know they would have signed one of
these to basically claim their their
land
and you can print it out if you happen
to find your family in there
we didn't but these are just examples of
what you know they would look like
so cool final proof
final there he is there's daniel freeman
so this is crazy too it says when you
need water you turn on a faucet when
homesteaders needed water they dug wells
damn streams or carried buckets
fetching water was grueling and
essential
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what did you say kids aren't even oh
yeah i'm not wearing shoes
no shoes
this one's the most latest one 1940.
okay
everything else is like late 1800s or
early 1900s yeah
[Applause]
yeah i had no idea like the homesteading
ended in the 1980s that's crazy
the school day's been in now
back then which looks pretty good to me
and now okay that's all junk food like
for real like christmas i mean this is a
little exaggerated
okay
i guess yeah look at baseball
and study
very simple as a blackboard i talk for
this is the first homesteader
daniel freeman 1863. that says he's
buried on his homestead
hmm and then this is the last guy
that claimed the homestead act and
annis 1974 kenneth the
a 29 year old californian and vietnam
veteran who had a fresh start
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homesteading was super hard so this goes
by
state each state which one was the most
successful
and looks like montana
beat everybody
that's nebraska oh nebraska's not far
behind
and then colorado was a good one and
south dakota and north dakota candy is
going to donate some money
to this monument because we really liked
it
because they don't really charge you
just it's a donation which is great
i just put in five hundred dollars
we just got done exploring the national
um the homestead national monument site
and
we really enjoyed it we learned so much
history
um i had no clue what any of that was
about until i went here
or you know we learned a little bit
while we're researching it but when you
go to this site you learn
a whole lot more about what the
homestead act was all about
and how it affected the native americans
um how
it grew the west more well like on the
east side
that's where kind of everyone was at the
time it was getting industrialized there
was a lot of homelessness
and like a lot of workers that didn't
have work so i guess a way to get rid of
the people that was overcrowding the
cities
was to offer them free land in the west
um
so a lot of them like what took up that
offer and left
um and started moving out west as
and also um they were advertising
you know to immigrants too to come and
settle in the west which i thought that
was really interesting that they also
were advertising that yeah
so people from you know europe who came
over here
and they you know first they they docked
in the east and they're handing out i
guess flyers and stuff or like they
would tell people which
like which lands you know they might
want to go to
um so like nebraska was like oh yeah we
have really good soil or
so it's kind of interesting um don't
worry about that yeah their ads looked
like really enticing too yeah if i saw
an ad like them by then like
i want some free land yeah but it wasn't
as
um all rosy as they meant it to me
because the
uh weather was harsh like you had to
build from scratch because all you got
was land yeah so
you'd have to build your house but you
don't have a house so you're basically
making makeshift tents and other things
just
to live on to why you build the land so
yeah it's
unfortunately um from the video we
watched there
a lot of them didn't make it that's how
harsh it was so if you did make it you
were
you know very lucky that you were able
to claim this land and also survive
the sad part about this whole thing was
that the native americans
uh the indians they lost a whole i think
they said like 70
of their land it might be more than that
though um they just
made these like bs treaties with the us
government and the us government did
abide by them
and they just were like you know take
just keep on pushing the indians out
and they would like give them leftover
land that was all crappy so they
couldn't
harvest or anything there so then they
had to rely on the americans
to give them food and they said that
their children had to go to american
school and they couldn't
learn any native uh american their
language so then they couldn't even
communicate with their parents anymore
it's kind of messed up i mean that is
really really sad i was kind of tearing
up about it
me too and that's that's genocide which
i'm glad they really touched up on it
wasn't just like a little thing they
touched up on it was like they really
let you know like yeah
we basically stole their land yeah but
yeah that's how
like a lot of the farming industry
happened was from this homestead
if you're ever passing through nebraska
or in the beatrice area it's like
about 45 minutes from lincoln nebraska
so if you're in lincoln nebraska's you
know nearby
um i would highly recommend stopping by
the homestead national monument site
it's
well worth learning the history of
america
we're on our way to the farm now our
uncle's farm
and on the way this is route 77
we'll pass by our grandma's house well
it's no longer our grandma's house they
sold it
when she passed away so we used to go
there
you know all the time any time i came to
nebraska that's where it would stay is
our grandma's house
and it's really in the middle of nowhere
i think she had like one neighbor
with lots of land yeah i'm not exactly
sure where it's at but i know it's
coming up
our dad used to make this drive from
omaha
to blue springs i don't know
once a month or so i would say it would
come on the weekends
i remember we would come at night a lot
of times probably because it was after
he got off work and i was always like
pitch dark
i remember like mom making a comment
like it's like the twilight zone
did we always pass oh no i think it's
around after this corner
that's it that was our grandma's house
i'm just gonna pull in a little bit just
to
get a glimpse of it oh this used to be
all dirt right here as now it's all
gross
like i don't know if like anybody bought
this or not well or
i think someone did buy it yeah yeah
so now we're just creeping onto someone
else like hey we're just a little
creeper
next time we got lost we'll get off now
proceed to the room none of this was
grass before right here it was all rocks
when we were younger it just looked so
much bigger than the backyard
but now looking at it looks small that's
still pretty big
yeah alex don't have that though
no decoration yeah
okay almost there wait six miles make a
left
yeah look at all that hate
just rolled up ready for the cows
for this dirt road
in a quarter mile turn right we're
almost
almost on the farm we actually have to
go through some dirt road
holy moly guys this is pretty bad
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farm or else it's still there really
old farmhouse it's over a century
like 15 years ago or something
hey
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[Laughter]
don't you know i'm uh old old old old
you don't look like it cause you're in
your 80s right
yep my hell are you now 83 83
wow i bet people don't know though
that's a lot of more it is a lot of corn
how many acres of corn is that
15 acres 50 that's
that's just just
okay so we saw our uncle larry at the
farm
and we talked to him and it was great
catching up
he also showed us the cemetery where
half of our relatives are buried and
we had no idea that they were all there
and we have a lot of relatives
dating back to gosh late 1800s
that are there our great-grandfather
high
and it's all written in german the
tombstone so that was really interesting
is buried there his first wife his
second wife which was our grandpa's mom
and of course our aunt our
uncle larry's wife she passed away three
years ago
so we went to go see her site to you
know pay some respect but we're gonna go
back tomorrow too to lay some flowers
there
and then behind that is our grandma's
tombstone and our grandfathers they're
very together so yeah it was kind of
neat to see
the family history there and it's the
cemetery is located right next to the
farm
you can actually walk there if you
really wanted to and
i i appreciated uncle larry you know
giving us the history because we never
ever learned anything about our
family for whatever reason so now we're
heading to kansas because
our uncle wanted to eat in marysville
and first we're like where the heck is
marysville because we're putting it in
the gps
and it didn't come up as nebraska and he
was like yeah it's in kansas like oh
it's in kansas so it's like
um wymore nebraska is where the farm is
it's
right on the border it's really close to
the border of kansas
so that's why um he knows marysville and
he seemed to really like this uh
restaurant called wagon wheel
so we're gonna go there and have dinner
with
our uncle and our two cousins
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