The Grand River National Grassland encompasses 155,000 acres in northwestern South Dakota, and the Grand River Ranger District in Lemmon, South Dakota, administers both it and the 6,700-acre Cedar River National Grassland in southwestern North Dakota. Built in 2004, the seven-mile Blacktail Trail was established to enhance recreational opportunities for hiking, biking, and horseback riding while offering views of wildflowers and wildlife common to the area. Interpretive panels placed along the trail in 2006 offer opportunities to learn about the history and ecology of the grasslands and about creatures that once inhabited this land and those that live on the prairie today. The grasslands are presented as places of quiet beauty, rich natural resources, and diverse recreation, but also as part of a harder history of strife, poverty, and dust. In the 1860s, free land drew thousands of homesteaders west, and by 1904 nearly 100 million acres of western land had been homesteaded into 500,000 farms. In the 1920s and 1930s, many farmers faced economic hardship along with droughts, floods, insect infestations, and erosion, and for many these pressures, together with the Great Depression and Dust Bowl, proved overwhelming. In the 1930s, the federal government bought back more than 11 million acres from homesteaders; some was later sold to private owners, while other land became public land administered by federal agencies, including the 4,000,000 acres of National Grasslands administered by the Forest Service.