Return to the Frontier: What Does the Future Hold for the Great Plains?
Not long after I started working at the Oklahoma Territorial Museum, the Popper thesis of the “Buffalo Commons,” came up in conversation. I have to admit, I was unaware of it at the time, but I've kept it in the back of my mind since. The theory is that the habitation of the Great Plains is unsustainable and the time will come when depopulation will occur and vast tracts of the plains will revert back to their natural state. This will require the federal government to repurchase lands settled under the Homestead Act of 1862, allocate funds to reestablish native flora and fauna, and restore the plains to its natural condition. It seems unfeasible and counter to our thoughts on personal property but it is interesting to speculate on the future of the Great Plains.
I have a romantic vision of the Buffalo Commons, of saddling a horse, loading up a pack mule, and setting off to hunt Buffalo with a .50 caliber Sharps rifle. Of riding for days and then cresting a hill and for the first time seeing buffalo grazing towards a meandering stream lined with cottonwoods. Searching for some mystical meaning of life in the toil and struggle with the wilderness. For some reason, in my vision, I have a scar across my face from a fight I obviously won with a Grizzly. Like I said it is a romantic vision.
You can’t talk about the future of the Great Plains and the Buffalo Commons without talking about U.S. Land Policy.
From the start the United States was in the land business. The Revolution is as much about the Proclamation Line of 1763 which prohibited colonial settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains as anything. And yes, I am talking about Indian lands, no matter where you live in the United States, from sea to shining sea you occupy land that was once and in many cases still is occupied by Native Americans.
U. S. Land Policy
1776 — September 16, 1776: The Continental Congress offered those who enlisted in the Army to fight in the Revolutionary War, a parcel of land ranging from 100 to 500 acres, depending on rank.
1785 — May 20, 1785: Congress established Public Lands from the relinquishment of the western land claims of the original 13 states.
1801 — March 3: Passage of the 1801 Act gave preemption or preference rights to pioneer settlers on Public Lands (Squatters Rights) to acquire the lands on which they had settled without prior purchase.
1812 — April 25, 1812: Established the General Land Office
1820 — April 24, 1820: Passage of the 1820 Sale Act made it possible to purchase public land in smaller amounts (down to 80 acres) for $1.25 per acre. Later this act was used when homesteaders took the option written in the 1862 Homestead Act for “commuting” their homestead claims and getting them faster by purchase.
1841 — September 4, 1841: Passage of the 1841 Preemption Act expanded pre-emption (preference rights) for pioneer settlers, promoting the division of public lands into small farms of up to 160 acres at not less than $1.25 per acre
1855 — March 3, 1855: The Bounty-Land Act of 1855 allows for warrants being issued to military veterans who could redeem them at any federal land office for 80 or 160 acres of federally owned land. The warrant could be sold to anyone else who could similarly obtain the land.
1861 — December 2, 1861: Speaker of the House Galusha A. Grow (1822–1907) of Pennsylvania, introduced homestead legislation that would be signed into law as the 1862 Homestead Act.
1862 Homestead Act Rules for Settlement
Homesteaders must be at least 21 years of age. Can be younger than 21 if head of household.
Single, widowed, separated, or divorced women were eligible to get a claim.
Foreign citizens must show intent to become U.S. citizens and to stay on the claim.
The homesteader can only claim 160 acres.
The homesteader could not already own 160 acres or more.
The homesteader must stay on the land 5 years and make improvements to get final title to the land.
Union veterans could deduct time spent in the Civil War from the 5 years.
Homesteaders could get title early by paying $1.25 an acre after the first year.
1862 — May 20: Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act
1887 — February 8, 1887: Passage of the Dawes Act provided for the division of tribally held lands under treaty into individually-owned tracts, with “surplus” lands being opened to homesteading and other forms of disposal.
1889 — March 2, 1889: Passage of new homestead legislation made several important changes to the 1862 Homestead Act, including allowing homesteaders who had claimed less than 160 acres, to make another homestead claim for the remaining acreage needed to achieve a full 160 acres.
1913 –Was the peak year for the most homestead applications. An estimated 11 million acres were claimed that year.
1976 — October 21, 1976: Passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act repealed all homestead laws in the contiguous United States, but allowed for a 10-year extension in Alaska.
May 5, 1988: Kenneth W. Deardorff of Alaska received the last homestead issued in the United States.
National Park Service
In 1890, Robert P. Porter, Superintendent of the Census closed the frontier. In the decade between the 1880 and 1890 census the U. S. population(62,979,766) met a two person per square mile standard. As of the 2010 Census the U. S. population is 308,745,538.
“Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement, etc., it cannot, therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports.”
Robert P. Porter, Superintendent of the Census
Frederick Jackson Turner presented his paper The Significance of the Frontier in American History to the American Historical Association at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Turner believed that the frontier experience is what created the American character, sort of the land making the man. The “Frontier Thesis,” would influence historians and the myth makers of the frontier for generations.
Ok so now we have closed the frontier and nearly 130 years have passed. Does the frontier only exist in the past, in popular culture, in the depths of the ocean, or the surface of Mars? Actually the Frontier is alive and well.
Now, I don’t mean there are people living in log cabins or sod houses and plowing forty acres with a mule. Well actually there is a growing community of “Homesteaders,” going back to the land, getting off the grid, living in tiny houses, growing their own food, and homeschooling their children. It makes me dream of Walden, Emerson’s Self Reliance, and My Side of the Mountain. These modern homesteaders aren’t all rural, many “Urban Homesteaders,” live lives of thrift and utilize their yards, rooftops, vacant lots and community gardens to sustainable provide food for their families and neighbors.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Henry David Thoreau
What I do mean is that population, the distance and time of travel to goods and services, access to paved roads, and the effects of weather on travel of some counties constitute frontier classification. To be considered a frontier county by population alone you need less than six people per square mile. Populations of twenty people per square mile can also be considered frontier when time and distance to goods and services are factored in. According to the 2010 census there are 518 individual frontier counties of the 3007 in the United States. Twenty five Oklahoma counties are considered frontier, they make up 38.4 percent of land area, 5.8 percent of the population, and are mostly on the Great Plains.
“Definitions of frontier for specific state and federal programs vary depending on the purpose of the project being funded. Some of the variables that may be considered in classifying an area as frontier include population density, distance from a population center or specific service, travel time to reach a population center or service, functional association with other places, service or market area, availability of paved roads, travel inhibiting weather, and seasonal changes in access to services. These conditions may cause significant problems in access to health services, create poor economic opportunities and other conditions causing health and social disparities. In order to meet the health and economic goals of the country, Frontier areas require specific recognition.”
National Rural Health Association
According to the USDA (Department of Agriculture), populations in non-metro counties have decreased by 190,000. The rate of births and migration to rural areas, no longer replace deaths, and those who move away to urban areas. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the nation’s urban population increased by 12.1 percent from 2000 to 2010, urban areas make up 80.7 percent of the U.S. population; in 1890 35.1 percent was urbanized. There are two types of urban areas, urbanized areas of 50,000 or more and urban clusters of 2500 or more people.
This urbanization of our population has led to the rise of “Megaregions.” According to the America 2050 Project, Megaregions or “Megalopolis,” are interlocking economic systems, shared natural resources and ecosystems, and common transportation systems link these population centers together. They identify eleven megaregions in the United States: Arizona Sun Corridor, Cascadia, Florida, Front Range, Great Lakes, Gulf Coast, Northeast, Northern California, Piedmont Atlantic, Southern California, and Texas Triangle. Oklahoma City and Tulsa fall within the orbit of the Texas Triangle: Houston, San Antonio, Dallas/ Ft. Worth.
There are no megaregions in the Great Plains although they touch the Front Range, Texas Triangle and the Great Lakes satellite Kansas City megaregions. The Great Plains will become the power source for these megaregions as fracking will continue to provide oil and natural gas for the foreseeable future. The rise of wind and solar power will continue to grow and royalties to land owners will keep the ownership in private hands.
The Great Plains is depopulating, people are migrating to urban centers. Hospitals are closing and doctors are moving to more profitable locals. Schools are losing funding and teachers are taking higher paying jobs in nearby megaregions or outside the profession. This does not bode well for the people who remain.
The creation of an environmental wonderland, “Where the Buffalo roam and the Deer and the Antelope play,” seems doubtful. The Buffalo have returned to National Parks and other public lands, along with Tribal lands and private ranches. Although they are unable to freely roam the plains, and many are raised as commercially exploited commodities. You can hunt Buffalo from Texas to Canada for around $3000, and buy ground buffalo for $9.99 a pound at the grocery store, and painted skulls and Buffalo robes for your home décor.
I’m sure this is not what the Poppers had in mind for the Buffalo Commons.
