Kinkaid Act - Background

Background

The economy of the Nebraska Sandhills region in the late 19th century was dominated by the cattle ranching industry. Large ranches dotted the landscape, utilizing largely-unclaimed lands in the public domain. Ranchers would file claims on lands with water access, and use the surrounding public pastures for grazing. Large stockmen sometimes used fraudulent homestead filings from employees and other individuals in order to gain title to surrounding land. A shack would be erected on these fraudulent claims and the claimant would stay there once every six months in order to claim residency. A common tactic was to gain title to a thin strip of land surrounding a large pasture in the public domain; the pasture would then be used for grazing purposes. This prevented anyone else from grazing their cattle in the enclosed area and discouraged homesteaders from claiming the land. Bartlett Richards and William Comstock, who formed the Spade Ranch, were famous for tactics such as these.

Due to the immense land holdings required for large cattle operations, the population of the Sandhills region decreased by 10% between 1890 and 1900, and millions of acres remained in the public domain. To address this issue, William Neville, a populist congressman from North Platte, Nebraska, introduced legislation in 1902 that would amend the Homestead Law to allow an individual to take a homestead of 1,280 acres in the arid and nonirrigable lands west of the 100th meridian. The bill never made it to the floor for debate.

In his 1902 address to congress, President Theodore Roosevelt made it a priority to settle the “public land problem.” He appointed a Public Lands Commission in 1903 to look into the issue and recommend solutions. The commission concluded that current land laws had been framed to accommodate humid regions, while the remaining public lands were arid in character. New land laws would be needed to settle the arid lands west of the 100th meridian.