Land Run

Land run (sometimes "land rush" ) usually refers to an historical event in which previously restricted land of the United States was opened to homestead on a first arrival basis. Some newly opened lands were sold first-come, sold by bid, or won by lottery, or by means other than a run. The settlers, no matter how they acquired occupancy, purchased the land from the United States Land Office. For former Indian lands, the Land Office distributed the sales funds to the various tribal entities, according to previously negotiated terms. The Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 was the most prominent of the land runs, although there were several others, as enumerated below.

Read more about Land Run:  Oklahoma Land Runs, Legacy, Further Reading

Famous quotes containing the words land and/or run:

    The first day that we landed upon that fatal shore
    The planters they came round us full twenty score or more,
    They rank’d us up like horses, and sold us out of hand
    Then yok’d us unto ploughs, my boys, to plow Van
    Dieman’s Land.
    —Unknown. Van Dieman’s Land (l. 9–12)

    The American Dream has run out of gas. The car has stopped. It no longer supplies the world with its images, its dreams, its fantasies. No more. It’s over. It supplies the world with its nightmares now: the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, Vietnam.
    —J.G. (James Graham)