homestead

Homestead.

1 City (1990 pop. 26,866), Dade co., SE Fla.; inc. 1913. A large Miami suburb with a growing Hispanic population, Homestead is a trade center for the redland district, known for its many varieties of citrus and other fruits and vegetables. Nearby Homestead Air Force Base was converted to a reserve base in 1994, with development slated for some of the land. The city is the gateway to Everglades National Park (see National Parks and Monuments, table) and the Florida Keys. Local attractions include several tropical gardens, a pioneer museum, a stock car racetrack, and a castlelike building furnished with coral items. A state subtropical experiment station is there, and a nuclear power plant is nearby. In 1992 a disastrous hurricane swept through S Florida, leveling much of the area, including the commercial center of Homestead.

2 Borough (1990 pop. 4,179), Allegheny co., SW Pa., on the Monongahela River just S of Pittsburgh; inc. 1880. Once a foremost U.S. steel producer, Homestead declined rapidly in the 1980s when steel companies relocated overseas. In 1892 the Homestead strike, one of the most bitterly fought industrial disputes in U.S. labor history, occurred there; the site has been redeveloped as the Waterfront, a mixed-use retail-residential complex.

Bibliography

See study by W. Serrin (1992).

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homestead

1. (in the US) a house and adjoining land designated by the owner as his fixed residence and exempt under the homestead laws from seizure and forced sale for debts

2. (in western Canada) a piece of land, usually 160 acres, granted to a settler by the federal government

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homestead

1. In the United States, under the Homestead Act of 1862, a tract of unoccupied public land, 160 acres in area, that could be permanently acquired after five years of continuous occupancy and the payment of a fee. The Act was passed by the Congress to promote westward expansion and for the purposes of revenue; this quantity of acreage was deemed adequate for the support of one family. Any citizen who settled on such survey public land could purchase it from the government if he was the head of a family and over 21 years of age.

2. The house built on such a tract.

3. (Brit.) A group of buildings and the land forming the home of a family.