American Agriculture History Minute: The First Real Pioneer Farmers

I’m Mark Oppold with an American Agriculture History Minute.

At the close of the Civil War, the government offered homesteads in Kansas to Union Army veterans and more than 100,000 took advantage. Most were strong young veterans who had left their families to fight for the Union and became really the first real pioneer farmers in Kansas.

The majority had been raised on farms in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio and understood what it took to turn the prairie sod into tillable land. Still, one man with a team of oxen could only clear about one acre of land per day and they couldn’t start until after the first of April and the ground thawed.

That’s today’s American Agriculture History Minute. I’m Mark Oppold. Thanks for reading. I’ll see you next time.