Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The new Homestead Heritage Center at Homestead National Monument of America will be dedicated and open to the public this coming Sunday.
The facility will be dedicated with a ceremony at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 20th, which is also the 145th anniversary of the date in 1862 on which President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law. The new building will include a national homesteading museum featuring exhibits on the Homestead Act’s many lasting impacts on industrialization, agriculture, American Indians, immigration to the United States, national politics, and the natural environment. All thirty of America’s homesteading states will be represented in the museum. This new visitor facility will open for the first time immediately following the dedication ceremony.
The Homestead Heritage Center’s design is unique and highly symbolic. A curved roof resembles the appearance of sod being pushed up from the ground by a plow blade. The roof’s apex also points directly west, symbolizing the Homestead Act’s role in America’s westward expansion.
“The building is somewhat futuristic in its appearance,” said Mark Engler, the park’s superintendent. “This is very appropriate when one considers that the Homestead Act was all about the future. Homesteaders sought better lives for themselves and their children, the government sought to populate and improve the West, and immigrants came here to homestead and for opportunities they often did not have in their home countries. Of course, the law also impacted American Indian tribes by opening up their traditional lands to homesteading farmers.”
Homestead National Monument of America was created in 1936. It is located on the former Daniel Freeman homestead, one of the very first tracts claimed on January 1, 1863, the day the Homestead Act became effective. The monument features an orientation film, museum exhibits, historic farming videos, the Palmer-Epard cabin, 100 acres of restored tallgrass prairie, and the Freeman School building, constructed in 1872. The monument commemorates the “free land idea” and the great transfer of over 270 million acres of land from federal to private ownership.
For additional information about the monument or the May 20th festivities, please call 402-223-3514 or visit www.nps.gov/home. Monument hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekends. Admission to all events, exhibits, and displays is free of charge.
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