07/18/07 Homesteads

Just about every ranch in the country has one. I'm Jeff Kane; I'll be back right after this to tell you what it is. There aren't very many ranches still owned by family members that don't have land called the "home place." Many of these home places were the original homestead that became the base acres for a lot of today's ranches. According to provisions of the Homestead Act these acres had to have a house on them to "prove up" the homestead. Some of these homestead houses are still standing and have quite a history. Many of them are only homes to ravens, falcons, packrats or rattlesnakes now, but they once felt the heat of a wood stove as breakfast and suppers were cooked. Chairs scraped on their floors and their walls suffered through nights of sleeping, snoring men who would work the next day in the fields or ride the pastures to check livestock. As I ride by these places, I'm amazed any of them are still holding together since they are all right around one hundred years old, never painted, only had marginal foundations and many have not been lived in for seventy years or longer. Some aren't standing, they are only fallen in piles of wood and I can only guess what they once looked like. I know the names of the families or the person who lived in some because of the stories different people have told me, but they all have a mystique about them. I always wonder about the wagons, buggies and horses that stood outside or in the corrals. Tomorrow I'll tell you the story of one old house I know a lot about. I'm Jeff Keane.