A self-made geologist and ethnologist who lost an arm fighting slavery in the Civil War, Powell led geological expeditions into Colorado and Utah, becoming in 1869 the first white to make the hazardous boat trip through the Grand Canyon. His 1875 account of the exploit was a major contribution to physiographic geology. He was instrumental in establishing in U.S. Geological Survey, serving as its director from 1881 to 1892. But Powell’s greatest accomplishment was his long campaign to persuade the U.S. government to develop irrigation in the West as a means of “reclaiming” land for agriculture. In his Report on Lands of the Arid Region of the United States (1878) he pointed out the dangers of soil erosion and advocated large-scale dam and irrigation projects west of the 100th meridian where annual rainfall was less than 20 inches. He criticized the 160-acre units allotted under the Homestead Act as unsuited to the environmental conditions of the West, urging instead land apportionment based on geography and water supply. His vision of a unified, rational, scientific approach to federal land policy was not shared by Western developers and Congressmen who rejected his reform proposals. But Powell’s ideas eventually triumphed. In 1902, Congress passed the Newlands Reclamation Act, which accepted the principle of federal management of western waterways and created the Bureau of Reclamation.

The federal government disposed of public lands in the West a variety of ways. It sold it, often to speculators; it gave vast tracts away to states and railroads; and with the Homestead Act of 1864, it made it available free to settlers. The Act granted 160 acres of public domain to any citizen or intended citizen who occupied it for five years. The homesteader could also purchase his land after six months for $1.25 per acre. but laxity in the law’s administration led to much abuse. Many claimants were not bonafide farmers, but dummy registrants acting for speculators, cattlemen and lumber and mining interests. In addition, the 160 acres allotted, while adequate in the East, was too small a unit on which to farm successfully in the dry High Plains. In time, however, modifications were made and many thousands of farmers established homesteads in Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas, and in the most dramatic fashion, Oklahoma. There, at noon on April 22, 1889, the government threw open two million acres of unassigned lands in Indian Territory for homesteading. When the starting guns and bugles sounded, more than 50,000 people — on foot, horses, cycles and wagons — surged across the border on a “run” to claim the best land. Similar landruns followed. But it was not only the Homestead Act that lured farmers to the Plains. The states and railroad companies were also active recruiters of settlers.