Siegrist Claim House, 1876

The Homestead Act of 1862, created by the federal government to encourage settlement of western territories and Kansas, required a settler to file a claim on 160 acres of land, build a house, and live in it for at least five years; upon satisfactory compliance, the settler received the deed to the claim and the right to purchase the remaining 480 acres at $1.00 per acre. In 1876, John Siegrist and his eldest son Jacob traveled from Tremont, Illinois, to Reno County, were impressed with the land, staked a claim in Reno Township on the southwest corner of Section 22 and the northwest corner of Section 27, and built the claim house. Jacob stayed there during the winter of 1876 while John returned to Illinois to prepare his wife Elizabeth and their other five children, George, Abraham, Mary, Hettie, and Anna, for their move to Kansas in the spring of 1877. The Siegrist children bought land around their parents' claim, and the family later became well known for cultivating wheat and raising Berkshire hogs. Although John and Jacob Siegrist had not expected the house to stand more than a few years, they began building a larger house in 1877 after the family's arrival, and that larger house still stands on Blanchard Street in South Hutchinson. When first built, the claim house had no windows on the north side, its doorway faced east rather than west, and its board-and-batten finish was more typical of barns than houses. Most of the original exterior wall on the east and west sides remained, though much of the batten had to be replaced, the roof was reconstructed with cedar shakes similar to materials available in 1876, and the original chimney, which collapsed in the 1940s, was restored with bricks from the family farm. Around the turn of the century, the house was moved about one mile south onto land owned by George and Mary Siegrist Spangenberger, attached to the back of the main Spangenberger house until 1912, then moved again a short distance. Between 1912 and 1946 it served as a wash house, and after 1946 George "Harold" Walters, grandson of George and Mary Spangenberger, used it as a workshop and tried throughout his life to preserve it. Highway construction eventually forced another move, after which the house was restored and opened to the public on September 5, 1998.

Hutchinson, Kansas · United States