National Monuments

If you watched the PBS Ken Burns documentary about the National Parks you know that presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush have used the Antiquities Act to create National Monuments on land already owned or controlled by the U. S. Government. The purpose of the act was to protect "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest" and has been used many times by presidents to create and enlarge National Monuments. Some times after a president had used the Antiquities Act to create a National Monument Congress has acted to name it a National Park.

Today there are 100 National Monuments the vast majority of which are administered by the National Park Service; but others are administered wholly or partly by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U. S. Forest Service, the Armed Services Retirement Home, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. However, not all National Monuments created by Congress are administered and operated by the Federal Government. Hohokam Pima NM is owned and operated by the Gila Indian Community, and the Poverty Point State LA is owned and operated by the Louisiana Office of State Parks.

Interestingly, of the 100 National Monuments that exist today only 71 were created by a president using the Antiquities Act, the other 29 were created by an Act of Congress. Typically, those created by an act of Congress were on private land that had to be purchased by the government or more often by private individuals who donated the land to the government after purchase.

The oldest to be created by an act of Congress is George Washington Birthplace National Monument in Virginia which was authorized January 23, 1930. The next four created by an act of Congress were all over the map: Canyon de Chelly in Arizona, Ocmulgee in Georgia, Fort Stanwix in the state of New York, and Homestead in Nebraska.

These five and most of the other National Monuments created by acts of Congress had long and difficult journeys involving many local people, Congressmen, and Senators before the legislation was passed. The story of the creation of Homestead National Monument of America is typical.

Below is a list of the 29 National Monuments that were created by an act of Congress:

National Monument		Agency Date of Enabling Legislation
George Washington Birthplace		Jan 1930 National Park Service [NPS]
Canyon de Chelly		Feb 1931 NPS
Ocmulgee		Jun 1934 NPS
Fort Stanwix		Aug 1935 NPS
Homestead		Mar 1936 NPS
Fort Frederica		May 1936 NPS
Pipestone		Aug 1937 NPS
Fort McHenry		Aug 1939 NPS
George Washington Carver		Jul 1943 NPS
Little Bighorn Battlefield		Mar 1946 NPS
Castle Clinton		Aug 1946 NPS
Fort Sumter		Apr 1948 NPS
Fort Union		Jun 1954 NPS
Booker T. Washington		Apr 1956 NPS
Grand Portage		Sep 1958 NPS
Agate Fossil Beds		Jun 1965 NPS
Alibates Flint Quarries		Aug 1965 NPS
Florissant Fossil Beds		Aug 1969 NPS
Hohokam Pima		Oct 1972 NPS
Fossil Butte		Oct 1972 NPS
John Day Fossil Beds		Oct 1974 NPS
El Malpais		Dec 1987 NPS
Poverty Point		Oct 1988 NPS
Hagerman Fossil Beds		Nov 1988 NPS
Petroglyph		Jun 1990 NPS
Newberry Volcanic		Nov 1990 U. S. Forest Service [USFS]
Mount St. Helens Volcanic		Aug 1982 USFS
Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains		Oct 2 Bureau of Land Management [BLM] and USFS 000
Prehistoric Trackways		Mar 2009 BLM

A New Mexico Homestead Story: Pie Town Woman

In 1940 about three hundred families lived in Pie Town. One of these families was selected by photographer Russell Lee to tell the story of homesteading in New Mexico during this time. Fifty years later photographer Joan Myers came across some of these images in a magazine article and wondered what happened to these twentieth century pioneers. Where are they today?

For several years it was just an unanswered question but then the author was given a letter written by one of the woman in the pictures. It said,

I am writing you because I too am a woman of New Mexico. In 1930-32 I spent each summer traveling with George Mickey, a Church of Christ minister who spent each summer holding meetings in different communities, at Pie Town, and community schoolhouses there in Catron County. His oldest daughter was my best friend. I don’t know anything about writing and can’t spell my own name but never the less I wrote in longhand about 46 pages of my life at Pie Town…


When Russell Lee came out to take his pictures, he was in my home many times. He loved to follow my daughter Josie around to make pictures of her doing what she normally did each day at play…

This letter was written by Doris Caudill. She is also pictured as a young woman looking proudly at her canning accomplishments. Myers set off to discover what had happened to her. Myers found her living in Cascade Locks, Oregon.

I told Russell about a square dance we were having at a neighbor’ house and invited he and Jean to go. He did and got a lot of fine pictures. One was McKee doing a jig. Another was the kids asleep on the bed. My Josie was the first one next to the camera. You can see her big feet better than her face…
Sorry to take up so much of your time but when I get started thinking of the Pie Town years I don’t want to stop talking. We were dirt poor but we didn’t know it. We were a happy and made our own fun.

The book is really two stories. One is of the photographs taken by Lee in 1940 and the other is the story of Doris and the impact this experience had on her. It is a great read for the history buff and for the person with an interest in photography.

One aspect of the book which impressed me was the way the author wrote about Doris’ experiences in Pie Town. It was based on what Doris remembered and I really wanted to believe her family had been successful. It seemed to match what the photographer had attempted to do when he took his pictures in 1940.

Before taking the pictures Lee first had to get the approval of his boss Roy Stryker, director of the historical section of the Information Division of the Farm Security Administration. The FSA was created during the Great Depression to solve the problems of the poorest farmers, especially those who had lost their livelihood under New Deal programs. Lee’s message to Stryker said:

"Then we crossed the continental divide and on to Pie Town, which is a settlement of migrants from Texas and Oklahoma-dry land farmers raising Pinto beans and corn. Talked with the store owner there and I believe it should be one community we must cover. He called it the “last frontier” with people on farms ranging from 30 to 200 acres –some living in cabins with dirt floors-others better off, but all seemingly united in an effort to make their community really function.”

Once he had Stryker’s approval he took over 600 pictures including 100 of Doris, her husband, Faro, and their daughter, Josie. They show Doris planting her garden, canning vegetables, milking cows and going to the neighborhood gatherings. It is interesting to look at the pictures and then read Doris’ descriptions of events which happened sixty years ago.

The author also talks to Lee’s widow to offer some understanding of his intentions when taking the photographs. This works because his widow, Jean Lee, accompanied her husband when he took the pictures and was responsible for writing the captions for each picture.

In addition to Lee’s iconic photographs the book also includes Doris’ family snapshots, and photographs taken by Myers herself showing the visual residue of those bygone years.

Joan Myers does a masterful job of combining these photographs along with interviews with Doris Caudill Jackson and Jean Lee to offer a complete look at a homesteading experience in the twentieth century and how it is remembered in the twenty-first century.

The Oklahoma Land Rush

“As noon approached, thousands of buggies and wagons edged up to the starting line. Black smoke rolled from the stacks of locomotives…” (McMahon, 1968 p72). Imagine the feelings coming over thousands of future homesteaders as they wait for the gun to signal the new beginning of their lives as future landowners.






By Stacy Kristek
Southeast Community College

Through the different texts I have learned a lot of information about the Oklahoma land rush that I would like to share with you. I would like to inform you about the Oklahoma land rushes that were made in the 1880’s and 1890’s. We will talk about the several different land rushes that were made into the Oklahoma territory, how the settlers made the rushes, and what they had to do to keep the land.

There were several land rushes into Oklahoma. The first was on April 22, 1889 at noon (McMahan, 1968). There were 11,000 quarter sections to claim (Newsom, 2001). This land rush got many people interested in the Oklahoma lands and in homesteading. According to Lucy Neumann in her book titled The Lust for Land, the lands in the April 22, 1889 rush are now know to us as Guthrie, Kingfisher, Edmond, and Oklahoma City (2000, p. 126).

The biggest land rush was on September 16, 1893 at noon. More than 100,000 people were lined up to race for the land (McMahan, 1968). There were 6,500,000 acres available for homesteading and that was split into 160 acres apiece (Newsom, 2001). The last race for land was a small one in 1895 (McMahan, 1968).

You may be asking yourselves just how these future homesteaders were able to make the land runs. There were many ways of transportation. Can you imagine being on the starting line on a horse or covered wagon waiting for high noon and the cannons to go off?

Oklahoma rushers traveled by fast saddle horses (McMahan, 1968), these rushers were in the lead of the pack (Newsom, 2001). Other rushers traveled by covered wagons. The wagons were loaded with their belongings and family members and usually pulled by old work horses. And other rushers traveled by the Santa Fe Rail Road (McMahan, 1968). The railroad was running slow trains through the district for the people who didn’t have a horse or buggy to use (McMahan, 1968). The railroad sold around 7,000 tickets but the cars were loaded with over 10,000 people (Neumann, 2000, p. 127).

So now you know just how rushers were able to go out and run for the land they wanted to homestead but what did they have to do to keep their land?

In order to keep their land, land rushers had to meet the criteria to be eligible. They could not already own more that 160 acres in any state or territory. They had to be a citizen of the U.S. or have filed intentions to become a citizen. They had to be the head of household or over 21 years of age (Doughty, 1998). The rules to keep the land once it was claimed included establishing within six months of the claim residence in a house upon the land and cultivation of the land continuously for five years (Doughty, 1998).

So, that is how the Oklahoma land rush was achieved in the late 1880’s and 1890’s. Now you know just how the pioneers made the run into the Oklahoma territory to participate in the land rush and what they had to do to keep their land. I can see it now:

Noon has passed and the smoke has cleared. Thousands of new homesteaders now have a stake in the land, so they rush off to the land office to file their claim.

References:


Doughty, G.W. (1998). The homestead laws. Ponca City, OK: North Central Oklahoma Historical Association.


McMahan, I. (1968). Highlights of American history. NY: Golden Press.


Neumann, L. (2000). The lust for land. Arkansas City, KS: Jayhawk Publications.


Newsom, D. (2001). The Cherokee Strip. Stillwater, OK: New Forums Press.

Fresh food for the homesteading travelers…

Manuel Hastings remembers his family en route to their homestead. He was then 4 years old. The family left Oklahoma for New Mexico in 1929 after the Dust Bowl. For the trip, the father had converted two models T into trailers.

“ Under the back of the first trailer, they had built a chicken pen. A number of chickens would ride until we stopped each evening. At dusk, they would return to the pen to roost for the night. We had one hen that was sitting on eggs and the other chickens would lay and furnish us with fresh eggs each day. When we started out, I had a pet ginnie and she laid speckled eggs. Ginnies were about the size of a chicken. We had problems getting her back into the coop each night at the back of the trailer, so we had a good dinner and cooked the ginnie like fried chicken.

Excerpt from Manuel Hastings’s memoirs. His parents homesteaded near Pie Town, NM in the 1930s.

Links
Virtual Tour Chicken House
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve Cottonwood Falls, KS

Chicken coop Sleeping Bear Dunes

Old Pup was my best friend

Manuel Hastings remembers his childhood in New Mexico where his parents homesteaded in 1929.


“Someone had given us a dog. It was reddish brown with white legs and stomach with a brown and white tail . . . Since we got him as a pup, that name stuck with him as long as we had him. He was referred to as “Old Pup.” I dearly loved this dog and everywhere I went, he would go with me whether I walked or was riding a horse. He would be with me and continually stayed within a few yards of me while hunting. He would often tree a porcupine. At first he would bite at them and get quills in his mouth. We would have to pull them out with pliers. It would hurt so badly, he would almost want to bite at us. But he knew it had to de done.”

Links
Wind Cave National Park--Porcupine - Erethizon dorsatum

Promised land…

Here are the first impressions of a 4 years old boy, finally reaching the family homestead. Because of the Dust Bowl, his family had left Oklahoma to settle to New Mexico in 1929.

All of the homesteads had beautiful gardens, corn fields and bean patches. Someone took us out to a section of land. We could smell the piñon and pine trees. What a peaceful and lovely place it was! I remember standing there, looking up to the top of the Alegra Mountain and saw a big rainbow in the sky.


An excerpt from Manuel Hastings’s memoirs. His parents homesteaded near Pie Town, NM in the 1930s.

Links
Savoring Pie Town

Homesteaders’ Humor

We went up to the foot of the Nipple Mountains. An old man and his bachelor son had a means of grinding corn into cornmeal. They invited us to stay for dinner. They had a fairly nice place compared to most homesteads.

We got there in the morning and were invited to stay for dinner after we had our corn ground. The son had prepared a roasted chicken. My daddy commented on how good the chicken was.


The man’s son said: “ Yeah, this old hen acted like she was about to die, so we thought we just go ahead and kill her and bake her before she did die.”

The above is an excerpt from Manuel Hastings’s memoirs. His parents homesteaded near Pie Town, New Mexico in the 1930s. His father was James Monroe Hastings (born in 1899). The family received title to the homestead land (640 acres) in May 1946.