The Homesteads, so far

"New Mexico was one of the last places in the country to acquire significant numbers of homesteaders who were escaping from tenancy and lack of available land in the East, Midwest and South Plains. Homesteaders increased in numbers through the 1890s. Homesteading continued into the 1900s …

These last waves of homesteading were encouraged by the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, which as we noted above made it possible to file on 320 acres and came closer to meeting southwestern conditions, and again by the Stock Raising Homestead Act of 1916, which made it possible to acquire title to a section of land by paying a filing fee of $34, living on the land for at least seven months a year for three years, building a "habitable" home, making $800 worth of improvements and paying a "proving-up" fee of $34." - Thomas Merlan, Historic Preservation Division, Office of Cultural Affairs, State of New Mexico, 2008.