The federal land patent process often referred as homesteads worked fine until the westward expansion. After crossing the Mississippi River there were dramatic changes in geography and climate. It was President Abraham Lincoln who corrected the situation. In 1862 Lincoln was able to pass three important pieces of legislation since his opposition failed to show up in Congress. These were the creation of the Department of Agricultural, the Pacific Railroad Act and the 1862 Homestead Act. While the Homestead Act did improve matters in the west, it was not a one-size cure all fix. The arid intermountain west presented its own challenges. A unique chain of events occurred when Captain Charles A. Merrill announced in 1873 of his reclamation plan for the Honey Lake Valley by tapping Eagle Lake as its water supply. It should be noted that Merrill was not a novice to land issues. He came to California, in 1864, from his native state of Maine. In 1870, Merrill was involved in a title dispute of a Mexican land grant near Santa Barbara. As a result of that involvement he worked ardently as a land agent for individuals who had capital to invest.
For Merrill to move forward on his Eagle Lake project he would need federal legislation for an easier method to homestead arid lands. Merrill recruited California Congressman J.K. Lutrell to craft such legislation. On March 3, 1875 Congress approved Lutrell’s bill, the Lassen County Desert Land Act. In essence, an individual could claim up to 640 acres of government land, versus the standard 160-acre limit. A person then had two years time to reclaim the land by irrigation and they could purchase the land from the government at $1.25 per acre. The last provision was unique in that one did not have to reside on the land as a requirement. The Lassen County Desert Land Act gave birth to the much more famous Desert Land Act of 1877. The two Acts were nearly identical; expect of course the latter applied to all arid regions of the American west. There was one other major change in the fee structure. Under the Desert Land Act, “the settlers pay twenty-five cents per acre at the time of application, to have three years (versus two) for the purpose of irrigation and to pay one dollar per acre upon making the final proof, i.e. being issued a land patent to the property. The Desert Land Act was immensely popular and large swaths of land in the West were obtained under this Act.
It should be noted there was a dark side to it. This was from the Lassen County Desert Land Act’s non-residence provision that was included in the Desert Land Act. In the first decade there was a significant amount of fraud. It enabled land speculation companies to acquire thousands of acres of land by hiring dummy entry men to file on said land. Locally, this was particularly the case in eastern Honey Lake Valley and the Madeline Plains. Later amendments to the Act reduced the fraudulent activity.
More tomorrow . . .