U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIORBUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
Facts and figures about homesteading in Alaska
Homesteading in Alaska at the extremes
Homestead statistics for Alaska
Between 1901 and 1988, fewer than 3,500 homestead patents were awarded to individuals in Alaska based on farming a portion of the land. Beginning in the 1930s, Alaska-only legislation prompted several thousands more patents for five-acre homesteads, also called “homesites” and “headquarter” sites, that didn’t require any cultivation. These 5-acre, non-agricultural “homesteads” required living on the land for most of three years. Claimants also paid $2.50 per acre. Technically these homesteaders “bought” the land instead of getting it for “free” by traditional homesteading. The last few of these unusual types of small-size “homestead” claims were still being patented near Slana and Lake Minchumina in the early twenty-first century, with some filed as recently as the 1980s.
Examples of homesteads in Central Alaska
William Egan Homestead/Homesite
William Allen Egan (1914-1984), Governor of Alaska during 1959-1966 and again 1970-1974, applied for a special type of Alaskan homestead (also called a homesite claim) on Aug. 22, 1950. It allowed for a claim of up to 5 acres. Subsequently, Egan built a cabin on the property locally called the "Egan Cabin" north of Valdez, Alaska along the Richardson Highway. However, he never received patent to the claim, with the case closed by BLM without action on July 8, 1959 (BLM casefile # AKA 016851). The cabin remained a trespass on public lands until 2009 when the current owners, the Powers family, quitclaimed deeded it to the State of AK. The AK State Dept. of Transportation subsequently removed the cabin for interpretive use to the Billy Mitchell Wayside along the Richardson Hwy. The land remains with BLM in 2011.
Slana Settlement Area abandoned Homestead/Homesite Claims
Similar to the Egan Cabin situation, BLM also manages perhaps hundreds of other abandoned small homestead/homesite claims (typically about 5 acres each) elsewhere in Alaska, especially in the two Slana Settlement areas which were among the final places where people could file for a special type of homestead in Alaska until the fall of 1986 when all forms of homesteading ended in Alaska (this was 10 years after FLPMA ended homesteading in the Lower 48, with AK granted a 10-year extension). These abandoned tracts are in an area of interior Alaska about 250 miles northeast of Anchorage and are mostly remote and not usually connected by roads.
Information supplied by John Jangala, BLM, Glennallen Field Office archaeologist, and Robert King, BLM, Alaska State Office.
Learn more about Alaskan homesteaders by visiting the Alaska's First and Last Homesteaders page.