In 1908, Charles and Rosetta Speese founded Empire, an African American homesteader community in Goshen County's North Platte Valley fifty miles east of here, and claimed 320 acres under the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. The families of Otis, Baseman, and Nathan Taylor soon joined them, and Empire's black homesteaders received ten patents for 2,741 acres. Arriving with capital from successful ventures in Nebraska, these families invested in new farms, built substantial sod and wood-frame houses, and grew the population to about sixty people. Residents endured several racially charged local disputes, including the murder of Baseman Taylor in 1913 while in the custody of the Goshen County Sheriff. The community then broke into factions, the farms produced meager results in the dry climate, and by 1920 Empire had been largely abandoned. Empire remains a powerful reminder of the struggles and achievements of African Americans who migrated to the plains seeking land, education, and civil rights.