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from the issue of June 10, 2004
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UNL to help preserve homesteading records
UNL and the Homestead National Monument of America in Beatrice announced plans May 24 to preserve important homesteading records from the Broken Bow area.
The project will convert 65,000 fragile paper records that were in the Broken Bow land office, which was open from 1890 to 1922, to microfilm and make them available for public use. The records document homesteading in the lands surrounding Broken Bow. In their current paper form, the records are housed in the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C., and are not easily accessible, subject to deterioration and vulnerable to hazards such as fire. The microfilm will be placed in the National Park Services’ Homestead National Monument in Beatrice for use by visitors such as descendants of homesteaders, historians, genealogists and tourists.
“This is a pilot project to test the feasibility, usefulness, cost and support for making the homesteading records safer and more accessible through microfilming,” said Richard Edwards, professor of economics and fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies at UNL, who is leading the project.
Mark Engler, superintendent of Homestead National Monument of America, said he foresees the day when all 2 million homesteading files - comprising some 30 million documents from all 30 of the homesteading states - will be microfilmed and available to the public in Beatrice. A $4.5 million Heritage Center facility at Homestead Monument is being planned and could one day house the homestead records.
The $45,000 funding for the pilot project comes from three sources: a $20,000 grant from the National Park Service’s Challenge Cost Share program; a $20,000 matching grant from the University of Nebraska Foundation; and a $5,000 grant from Eastern National Parks and Monuments Association.
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UNL to help preserve homesteading records
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