I had some ancestors that lived around Macomb IL about 160 yrs ago or so.  We were driving thru that area recently, and my husband said, "I don't know why your family didn't homestead about 2000 acres of this around here so we could be farming it."   I told him with his luck, it would have been the other side of the family that homesteaded, and it would have been 2000 acres just outside Guthrie TX and he'd be chasing cattle and trying to grow cotton instead.