The Search for the Homestead Treasure: A Mystery

by Ann Treacy

  Much of the rich farmland of Goodhue County was purchased before the Homestead Act of 1862. Through this act the government gave 160 acres of untamed land free to anyone willing to farm it. In order to own a homestead, farmers had to “prove up” their claim, which meant living on the land for five years and growing crops on a portion of it. The program was wildly popular and helped to settle our country. But in the short span of forty years, speculators bought up many family farms, grouped them into larger parcels, and sold them. By 1900, nine of every ten homesteads were owned by these land monopolists, banks, or the railroads.

  What Martin’s family did in leaving town for farming was very unusual. After 1900, the growing cities were the place to be! Suddenly there were buyers for farms, and families who were tired of uncertain weather and all the hard work that farming required were tempted to sell. But folks who hung on would have an easier time in the decades to come. Those with a tie to the land would more readily have food during the World Wars and the Depression of the 1930s. What if we look ahead twenty-five years and imagine the Gunnarsson homestead and Martin’s family then . . .

  Acknowledgments

  My first thanks go to my husband, Kevin, and children, Carolyn and John, for their support and for loving history as I do.

  I received help and answers to many questions from Afton Esson, archives and library manager of the Goodhue County Historical Society. Many people have encouraged my writing career, including my sisters, Mary Caskey and Rose Boll, and my friends Mary W. Zbaracki, Jane Hovland, and Mary Treacy O’Keefe. Fellow writers (and one son-in-law) who read and commented on sections or complete drafts include Helen Hemphill, Margi Preus, Bridget Reistad, Linda Glaser, Ann Horowitz, Yvonne Pearson, Naomi Musch, Konnie LeMay, Gwenyth Swain, Anthony Bramante, and Katharine Johnson. Special thanks to Katharine and Dale Johnson for introducing me to the historic Eli Wirtanen homestead, established in 1904.

  A vitally important person to this book has been Erik Anderson, University of Minnesota editor and believer in Martin. Thank you for championing this story.

  Finally, I’d like to gratefully acknowledge managing editor Laura Westlund for her careful reading and enthusiasm for this story.

  Ann Treacy is a freelance writer and children’s author. Her writing has been published in Lake Superior Magazine and Highlights for Children magazine, and she is coeditor, with Margi Preus, of A Book of Grace. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota.