The United States Government has given away more than one billion acres of land since 1776. The first recipients were Hessian deserters from the British Army after the Revolutionary War. In the following decades, Congress passed hundreds of laws dealing with the surveying and selling of land. Offices were established for registering land transactions. The railroads received large land grants from the government to develop the West. The Santa Fe and Rock Island railroads received substantial grants in Kansas.

In the 1870s and 1880s, there were agents who visited more populated areas in the eastern parts of the country. They praised the open country in the Dakotas, Nebraska and Kansas where land prices were low and opportunity was great. The railroads had plenty of land to sell to people willing to settle in the open spaces of the West.

August Sandburg looked up to his cousin Magnus Holmes, who was fifteen years older. He had encouraged August to settle in Galesburg and also gave him advice on financial matters.

Magnus had purchased a quarter section (160 acres) of land in Nebraska. He paid taxes on it each year. After three years his son Frank went to Nebraska and farmed the land. He built a sod house, planted corn and raised hogs and cattle.

After three years Frank wrote to his family that he was lonely. His sister Lily went to live with him and teach in the local sod school. She received a draft from the school board as her pay. She gave it to her brother who traded it for a windmill. All the shallow wells he had dug went dry. The windmill could pump water from a deeper source for the animals and save a great deal of labor.

One year August Sandburg rode the train to Pawnee County, Kansas. He purchased a quarter section of land near Larned, the county seat. Later he sold the acreage for a small profit and purchased another quarter section. It lost value during the Panic of 1893. August had to sell it because he couldn't pay the taxes during those hard times. If he had been able to hold on to it for another ten years or so, the price of the property would have multiplied several times.

When Carl Sandburg was hoboing across Kansas in 1897 and following the wheat harvest, he spent several days working near the town of Larned. He observed the Main Street could be walked in about three minutes. There were empty houses on several streets which the owners had abandoned. The county courthouse stood on the Main Street. Carl walked by it feeling that he was a proper citizen. Each year he had written the letters to accompany the money orders his father sent to pay the real estate taxes.

Whenever August talked about moving to Kansas to farm, the rest of the family began to worry about leaving Galesburg. The town, the people and the railroads were familiar to them. Living on a farm in the middle of the prairie would be a drastic change. Farming was hard work and the weather could cause economic hardship. Homesteading in Kansas meant subsistence farming. Families had to grow and preserve their own food and sew their own clothing. It also meant isolation from other people. The biggest attraction may have been the feeling of independence that came from being on your own.