While it only merited a single paragraph, it did make the front page. The Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916 had passed.
This was a major change in the homesteading laws in that it was the first of two homestead acts that recognized the stock raising and arid nature of the West. Rather than grant 40 acres, as the original Homestead Act had, it allowed for 640, an entire section. It would be signed into law by President Wilson on December 29.
While we do not associate this period with homesteading it was actually the height, and close to the finish, of it. A large number of entries were being taken out, and soon a large number would fail in the post World War One agricultural crash and drought.
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