Celebrating America 250… There is something I have always loved about late summer on American ground. The light turns golden toward evening, the fields go heavy and full, and the whole country seems to lean toward celebration. This year the celebration is a grand one. America is turning two hundred and fifty, and I can think of no lovelier place to mark the occasion than out on the land itself.
We tend to remember the country’s birthday with fireworks and flags, with picnics and parades, and those things are wonderful. But if you look a little closer at the story of this country, you will find that it has always been, at heart, a story about land. The ground we gather on. The ground we plant. The ground we are fortunate enough to call our own and, in time, to pass along.
A Country Built on Beautiful Ground
I find it remarkable that some of the oldest American traditions are quiet ones, written into the land long before they were written into history books. In 1785, only a few years past that first Independence Day, the young country sat down and decided how it would measure its ground. It laid the land out in tidy squares. Six miles to a township. Thirty-six sections to a township. A neat 640 acres to a section.
That careful grid is still with us. When a land broker today describes a quarter section by its place on the map, they are reading from a plan the country drew before George Washington ever took office. I think there is something rather beautiful in that. The order beneath our fields is one of the oldest American things we have, and most of us walk right over it without a thought.
An Inheritance Worth Tending
The chapter I love most is the one that filled in the middle of the country. In 1862, President Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, and the nation made an extraordinary offer. Settle on 160 acres. Build a home. Work the ground for five years, and it would be yours to keep.
The families who answered that call came with very little and built something lasting. Some of the very first claims in the entire country were filed right in Nebraska. They arrived, many of them, by way of the railroad, the great iron horse that carried hopeful families west and set them down within reach of open country. The little towns that grew up along those lines became home, and have stayed home for generations. The name on our sign is a fond nod to all of it.
What moves me is that so much of this ground is still in the same families. The great-grandchildren of those first homesteaders are out there today, tending land their people earned one season at a time. That is not just history. That is an inheritance, cared for and handed down, the way the very best things always are.
Gathering on the Land
If there is a single thing I believe in, it is the joy of gathering, and there is no finer table than the one set out of doors on a warm evening. The Fourth of July has always struck me as a holiday made for the land. We carry the food outside. We spread the quilts in the grass. We let the children run until the light goes soft, and we watch the sky together.
This year, when the country celebrates America 250, our beautiful country’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday, I hope you will celebrate where it all began, on the ground beneath your feet. Walk the fence line at golden hour. Bring the family out to the place that has held your name for generations. There is no grander setting for an American celebration than the American land.
America 250 & Beyond: Keeping It for the Next Hundred Years
The most gracious thing we can do with anything we love is to care for it well and pass it along better than we found it. Land asks the same of us. It outlasts every anniversary and every one of us, and it rewards the people who tend it with patience.
America 250 is a happy reminder that this country was built on good ground, by people who understood the quiet pleasure of keeping a piece of it. We spend our days alongside the families behind that land, helping them buy it, sell it, and keep it close for the next generation. On the country’s two hundred and fiftieth birthday, I cannot think of better work, and we are grateful to do it.
If your family is thinking about what comes next for your land, we would be delighted to sit down with you. It is a conversation we always welcome.
