J. D. Semler poses with his wife Lillie, their two young children, and a donkey or mule outside his sod house near Woods Park in Custer County, Nebraska in 1886. It was in Nebraska that the first homestead was claimed under the 1862 Homestead Act.

The act, passed by Abraham Lincoln, meant any citizen could claim 160 acres of surveyed land. After five years of farming the same plot, they were entitled to it 'free and clear.' By 1904, 80 million acres had been claimed by homesteaders. The scheme was intended to speed the settlement of the western territories, but in doing so it displaced Native American communities and destroyed their way of life forever.

Rare photos that capture the history of American homes through the years