The Dakota Boom of 1878 to 1887 did not happen only in Aurora County. The land grab was a phenomenon throughout the eastern half of Dakota Territory. The first people to claim land in Aurora County arrived in 1879. More came in 1880. Oxen-pulled wagons brought the earliest settlers. The rail cars on the new tracks of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company brought the rest.
One of the first women to arrive was Isabella Todd Diehl, a twenty-nine-year-old newlywed from Scotland who had crossed the ocean to marry a man she had never met. Falling in love with a handsome picture of Isabella displayed in her uncle’s home in Iowa, Martin Diehl “began the correspondence that ended in the question –‘If he sent her a ticket would she come and marry him?’” The Diehl’s settled on a claim in Hopper Township, in section 26, on May 2, 1881. Occupying a nearby claim, in section 27, with her husband Henry and children, Louisa Gardner, aged thirty-nine years, arrived at six hours before Isabella. The two women had no other female neighbors for the first two years.
When the government opened public lands in Aurora County, people rushed to claim that acreage, in tracts of 160 acres or less, under three federal land laws: the Pre-emption Act of 1841, the Homestead Act of 1862, and the Timber Culture Act of 1873. Not everyone planned to keep their land, creating a brisk business in real estate transfers as soon as clear title was obtained. The easiest way to acquire title was to file a pre-emption, live on the land for six continuous months, begin cultivation, and then purchase the land for $1.25 per acre, $200 for a quarter section of 160 acres. Under the Homestead Act, a person could obtain a tract of land for free after living and farming the land for five years. After only six months of residence, the homestead could be commuted for cash, similar to a pre-emption. Those who filed a “tree claim” could apply for final title after eight years by planting trees on ten or more acres and providing proof of a certain number of living trees.
The laws also allowed females, if head of household, to file for public lands. The government issued 285 titles, called patents, to women in Aurora County, averaging about fourteen patents per township, usually 160 acres each. Generally, widows and single women registered and obtained title, but sometimes, marital status changed during the process. There were 32 women who married before filing final papers and 18 women who received title to lands that were originally registered by their husbands, possibly due to husbands dying or abandoning their wives. In Pleasant Lake Township, 23 women successfully claimed title to public lands. One woman, Kate Farley Brady, pre-empted 160 acres in section 32 and filed a ‘tree claim’ on another 160 acres in section 34 as a single woman, later obtaining the timber culture patent as a married woman.
Many people paid cash for their land. In Dudley Township, for example, 62 patents were issued to those filing pre-emptions or commuting homesteads for cash; 53 patents were issued to those meeting the five-year homesteading requirements; and 23 patents were issued to those meeting the timber culture requirements. In that township, a little more than one-fourth of the public land was awarded to a total of 16 people. One person obtained 240 acres, 12 people obtained 320 acres each and 3 people—Hugh Hughes, Rees E. Jones, and Michael Ryan—obtained 480 acres each through a combination of the three laws. Within five years, 41 percent of all of the real estate in the county had moved into private hands and onto the tax rolls.
The Diehl and Gardner families arrived at an ideal time. A record snowmelt in the spring of 1881 filled streams, lakes, and ground depressions with water, creating excellent conditions for abundant crops that lasted many years. Once the house was built and a well dug, Isabella and her husband planted the food that they needed for themselves and their farm animals, including feed corn, sweet corn, potatoes, beans, root crops, squash, pumpkin, and melons. By 1887, the Diehl holdings had increased by another 160 acres, and the family had grown by two sons and a daughter. Isabella, who had worked as a linen-weaver and in a bakery in Scotland, learned to raise chickens and churn butter. By selling eggs and butter, she earned the cash needed to purchase sugar, salt, and other groceries. The couple added new buildings, cultivated more land, made improvements to the home, and increased their livestock holdings. The creeks were full, and the “rains were plentiful during the first few years and the soil fertile, so they harvested beautifully.”
Note: The story of Isabella Todd Diehl, written by her niece Ella Todd Wilson, is available at the South Dakota Historical Society in Pierre, SD, in the Aurora County folder of the Pioneer Daughters Collection, collected by the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in the 1940s.
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It Happened Right Here: Claiming Public Lands, by Ruth Page Jones. Published in the South Dakota Mail, Plankinton, South Dakota, March 31, 2016.
RPJ Histories - Ruth Page Jones 