The rugged, windswept prairies of the Great Plains and the rolling knolls of the Sandhills posed formidable challenges for homesteaders and ranchers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Women made up nearly a quarter of those who braved the unknown to claim up to 160 acres of land under the Homestead Act of 1862.

Essie Davis, a hatmaker turned rancher, forged a life of resilience and innovation in Cherry County. She transformed her late husband’s 3,000-acre ranch into one of Nebraska’s most successful operations during the Great Depression, earning national recognition for her cattle breeding and conservation efforts.

Lucinda Tann Stone, a Canadian immigrant, built a life on the Nebraska frontier in Dawson County during the 1880s. She overcame racial and gender barriers to become a successful homesteader. Meanwhile, the Chrisman sisters – four unmarried women – claimed land in Custer County during the same era. Choosing to delay marriage, they labored tirelessly to establish themselves as pioneers on the Great Plains.

Together, their stories highlight the tenacity and determination of women who helped shape Nebraska’s agricultural and ranching legacy.

 

Chrisman Sisters
Custer County

Outside their sod home, the Chrisman sisters – Elizabeth “Lizzie,” Lucy “Lutie,” Harriet “Hattie,” and Jennie Ruth “Ruth” – wore brown-and-white gingham and percale dresses. Two saddled horses, Bet and Jessie, stood protectively on either side of the sisters. Behind them was Lizzie’s modest house, constructed from sod blocks and prairie grass, located on the Goheen settlement near Lillian Creek in 1886.

The women gazed stoically into photographer Solomon D. Butcher’s camera. It was common for proud landowners to display their possessions in photographs as a testament to their hard-earned success. However, Ruth, who was only 11 when her family moved to Custer County, later expressed her dislike of the image. “I looked like a horse thief,” she said of her messy hair hanging over her forehead.

Because the government only recognized husbands as heads of households, women like the Chrisman sisters delayed marriage to maintain ownership of their land claims. The four sisters prioritized pioneering on the Great Plains over societal expectations.

Lizzie, the eldest, purchased her land from the government in 1886 for $2.50 per acre under the Preemption Act of 1841. Lutie filed her claim the following year using the Homestead Act of 1862, and Hattie later followed suit.

The youngest sister, Ruth, never claimed land. Although she received a patent, so did another. Lewis Cushman went to the courthouse before Ruth, leaving her without her own land. She lived with her sisters before becoming a teacher and later a nurse.

In 1883, the sisters traveled with their parents and three brothers in five wagons from Nemaha County to Custer County. Their father settled 14 miles north of Broken Bow, while the siblings claimed adjoining land totaling 2,281 acres, according to land management records.

The unmarried sisters rotated between living together and establishing their own farms, building lives of self-sufficiency on the prairie. Ruth fondly remembered gathering fruit during the summers. “I can remember how we used to gather wild fruit in the canyons. Such delicious plums and raspberries – and the grass would be over our heads,” she wrote in a letter to Martha Turner, a Nebraska State Historical Society librarian. “Summer months were beautiful, such wonderful rains – never heard of droughts those days. But the winters were quite severe.”

Ruth also recounted surviving the Blizzard of 1888, known as the Schoolchildren’s Blizzard. She was at school during the deadly storm, which claimed the lives of more than 100 Nebraskans on January 12. “We had no fuel to burn but corn stalks – so we had to ‘move out.’ We went with the storms to the nearest neighbor, a widowed lady. She was out of fuel, too – had to burn some old chairs to keep us warm.”

While Ruth never married, her three older sisters eventually did, proving that marriage and a successful life of homesteading were not mutually exclusive.

Lizzie, the eldest, spent her later years farming with her husband near Broken Bow. Ruth wrote, “[She] still loves to gather the wild fruit every summer – walks and carries it home. Says it reminds her of the early days in Custer Co.”

 

Lucinda  Stone Tann
Dawson County

Many Black women in the 1880s lacked the education to read, write or even sign their own names. Lucinda Stone Tann, a prominent homesteader who moved from Buxton, Canada, to Dawson County in the late 1800s, was one of the few who could.

At age 21, Lucinda immigrated to the United States in 1879. Shortly thereafter, she hired a local man named Elijah Tann to build a 14-by-24-foot sod house on a small plot of land, paying $25 for the construction.

Elijah and Lucinda married in November 1881, just a few months after the house was completed. Despite their union, Lucinda never added or signed over the deed to her husband – a rare practice for women in the 19th century.

At the time, the doctrine of coverture dictated that a married woman’s legal rights, including property ownership, were transferred to her husband. Wives could not own property in their own names, and husbands held control over any land their wives brought into the marriage.

However, Nebraska’s Married Women’s Property Act of 1871 marked a turning point. It granted women the right to own and control property independently, preventing husbands from selling their wives’ property or using it to pay off debts. This legal shift allowed Lucinda to retain ownership of her homestead, but the law was still relatively new and far from socially accepted when she filed her claim in 1881.

Over the next five years, Lucinda and Elijah welcomed three children: Ada, Clinton and Ida. Lucinda later had three more children and officially gained American citizenship on Dec. 18, 1886.

The family thrived on their homestead, cultivating five acres of planted land and breaking ground on an additional 50 acres. Their farm featured six fruit trees, two horses, three cattle, six hogs and 50 chickens. The fertile soil provided bountiful harvests of corn, wheat, and oats. Together, Lucinda and Elijah worked tirelessly to plow, plant and harvest their crops. Lucinda also shouldered the domestic responsibilities of cooking, cleaning and caring for their children.

Though she could not vote – a right that women in Nebraska wouldn’t gain until 1920 – Lucinda’s landownership provided her with significant economic and social power. Because the home remained in her name, decisions about the property rested solely with her.

In the 1890s, the family was forced to sell their Nebraskan land due to prolonged drought and low farm prices. They relocated to Mustang, Oklahoma, where they started anew on 160 acres. Today, visitors to Homestead National Historical Park in Beatrice, Nebraska – 200 miles east of the Stone family’s original plot – can explore the state’s homesteading history. The park showcases preserved landmarks such as a hardwood cabin, a red-brick schoolhouse and tallgrass prairie reminiscent of Lucinda Tann Stone’s land.

Visitors learn about other individuals such as the colony of DeWitty, the most populous and successful settlement of Black homesteaders in Nebraska. Black homesteaders, like Lucinda, defied systemic barriers to own land and carve their own space in the Great Plains.

 

Essie Davis
Cherry County

Essie Davis had no agricultural experience when she inherited her husband’s 3,000-acre ranch north of Hyannis following his death in 1915. A hatmaker by trade, Davis had owned a shop in Ogallala before embarking on her unexpected journey into ranching.

She met Arthur Thane (A.T.) Davis in 1911 while traveling to the Denver Stock Show with her father. A.T., the owner of a Cherry County ranch, married Essie in June 1913. The couple welcomed their son, A.T. Jr., a year later.

Tragedy struck just four months after A.T. Jr.’s birth when her husband passed away, leaving Essie with a small child, a ranch and $80,000 in debt. Undeterred, Davis took on the challenge of running the ranch, determined to succeed.

Martha McKelvie later chronicled her story in the biography Sandhills Essie. Reflecting on her early hardships, Davis said, “I decided to live my life each day and live it so that I could look any man in the face and tell him to go to hell!... A woman’s ranch problems are no different than a man’s, except that they are often emphasized or exaggerated.”

In 1930, the Great Depression wreaked havoc on the ranching industry. Cattle prices plummeted to as low as $2 per head, wages stagnated and the Dust Bowl drought devastated the plains. Despite these challenges, Davis steadily expanded her ranch, earning income from cattle sales, land leasing and loans.

By 1934, she had grown the ranch from 3,000 to 25,000 acres. Davis specialized in purebred Hereford cattle, prized for their high-quality beef, and worked diligently to improve her herd’s genetics by acquiring healthy bulls and avoiding inbreeding. As one of the few female ranchers of her time, Davis stood out in a male-dominated industry.

Her tenacity was famously highlighted during a bidding war with former Nebraska governor Sam McKelvie. When Davis held her ground on a Hereford bull, McKelvie reportedly exclaimed, “Who in hell is that woman who thinks she can outbid me!” McKelvie’s neighbor replied, “That’s Essie Davis, and she can!”

Davis also embraced innovative practices like range management, balancing the needs of her animals with sustainable grazing techniques. She and her son planted 250,000 trees across the ranch, further cementing her commitment to conservation.

In 1939, Davis became the first woman in Nebraska – and the fourth in the nation – to receive the prestigious Master Farmer Award. Her contributions to prairie conservation and cattle breeding earned her a lasting legacy as one of Nebraska’s most successful ranchers.

Essie Davis passed away on Feb. 6, 1966, but her influence endures in the Sandhills and in Nebraska’s ranching practices. Her life story is documented in Sandhills Essie, available in libraries and online.