Nebraskans Are Hoping They Can Reverse Out-State Migration

David Hendee, in the Omaha World Herald (June 27, 2004):

It was the Nebraska version of a gold rush.

Thousands of land-seekers poured into remote towns from O'Neill to Alliance 100 years ago this week to stake a claim to a square-mile homestead in Nebraska's last frontier.

They temporarily reversed a period of declining population that had started in the 1890s.

In less than two decades, the population of the 37 central and western Nebraska counties included in the federal Kincaid Act swelled by 84 percent as farmers fenced and plowed the vast grasslands of cattle barons.

After that initial population spike, however, the gains in most of Nebraska's Kincaid counties were erased by decades of decline.

Now, a century after the boom, a majority of the Kincaid counties have fewer people today than they did in 1900. And Congress is considering a new bold initiative to break the cycle of out-migration.

The depopulation hasn't gone unnoticed, especially by descendants of the Kincaiders.

"I wish they'd do it again," said rancher Dorothy Barthel of Amelia. "We're losing our people."

The Kincaid counties are the heart of a swath of the Great Plains where seven of 10 counties from the Dakotas to Texas saw population declines averaging 30 percent since 1980.

Among the century's big losers was Custer County in central Nebraska. It grew by 1,000 people a year from 1904 to 1910 and added a few more hundred in the next decade before starting a steady decline. The county now has nearly 8,000 fewer people than in 1900....

The Kincaid Act was the work of first-term Republican congressman Moses P. Kincaid, an O'Neill attorney.

Although historians, in general, write off the law as a failure, O'Neill High School history teacher Lauren Hiebner doesn't agree. Hiebner wrote his master's degree thesis on the legacy of the Kincaid Act.

"The Kincaid Act was an avenue for bringing progress to what had been considered an undesirable region of western Nebraska," he said. "If not for Kincaid, a lot of towns in the Sand Hills would have dried up a long time ago."...

Just as the Kincaid Act was a refinement to make the Homestead Act of 1862 viable in semiarid western Nebraska, Hassebrook said, the Great Plains needs a new federal policy.

He sees hope in the New Homestead Act proposed by Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and Byron Dorgan, D-N.D. The legislation promises economic benefits such as tax credits and forgiven student loans to people willing to try to make a living in a depopulated community.

"This is a big bill, and we recognize that we're not going to accomplish everything in one gulp," Hagel said. "But if we can make progress every year . . . then at least we give people more options and opportunities for their families and children."...

Kincaid Act of 1904

Named for U.S. Rep. Moses P. Kincaid of ONeill. Effective June 28, 1904. Allowed 640-acre homesteads. Original Homestead Act of 1862 limited claims to 160 acres. Settlers received title to the land after living on it five years and making $ 800 in improvements. Many settlers requested extensions. Created a land rush in the Sand Hills. Last Kincaid claim completed in 1941.

Kincaid counties

Confined to 37 counties in semi-arid western Nebraska