By the hundreds they came, in horse-drawn wagons and Model T Fords, following a dream that today seems doomed from the start -- to build their farms and their futures in Oregon's high desert. Even though the land was free, this new wave of pioneers who arrived in the first years of the twentieth century found they paid a dear price for their homesteads.
"It usually took five years for a man to arrive," said one of the homesteaders, "build a house, fence some land, break it, put in a crop, wait in vain to harvest it, lose his money, get tired of jackrabbit stew, and leave."
Yet in spite of their failures -- no matter where they staked their claims across the high desert of the country's last frontier -- these desert homesteaders became part of the story, as well as the spirit, of the American West.
