The following link is to a diary of an 1858 wagon train from the Carolinas to mid america. Many of this group settled in my state of Arkansas where land was. 50 cents an acre.
http://www.argenweb.net/pope/wagon.html
An exerpt;
26th Nov (1858). Leave our camp our road still leading down the bayou, here the fields and woods were full of turkey, deer and sprinkled with bear. The turkey were gobbling, calling and strutting in broad day just as if they were barnyard fowls. We find a mill here that we can get some coarse meal by waiting for the grinding. Leave bayou and mill then cross north fork of White river, a beautiful clear stream of good size, steamboats running on it in the wet seasons. Then we come to very fertile ands and well timbered, much of it still to be had at government prices, subject entry at 50¢ to $1.25 per acre. In our thickly settled states these lands would command from ten to fifty dollars per acre. We go into camp after a days drive of 17 miles, raining.
http://www.argenweb.net/pope/wagon.html
An exerpt;
26th Nov (1858). Leave our camp our road still leading down the bayou, here the fields and woods were full of turkey, deer and sprinkled with bear. The turkey were gobbling, calling and strutting in broad day just as if they were barnyard fowls. We find a mill here that we can get some coarse meal by waiting for the grinding. Leave bayou and mill then cross north fork of White river, a beautiful clear stream of good size, steamboats running on it in the wet seasons. Then we come to very fertile ands and well timbered, much of it still to be had at government prices, subject entry at 50¢ to $1.25 per acre. In our thickly settled states these lands would command from ten to fifty dollars per acre. We go into camp after a days drive of 17 miles, raining.
