In 1859, a young schoolteacher in Illinois who would later become a famous explorer, John Wesley Powell, used to make his students sing: "Our lands are broad enough. Have no alarm. For Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm." Uncle Sam indeed obliged. In a series of Homestead Acts, pioneers staked 270m acres (110m hectares) of land. Even after the fertile ground had been snapped up, the settlers still kept coming. In the first two decades of the 20th century, they poured into the less productive areas-eastern Montana, the western Dakotas and western Nebraska. They endured the hardships of Job. Most were driven away, but the obstinate stayed. And, alas, they have struggled ever since.
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