Almost Pioneers: One Couple's Homesteading Adventure in the West

In the fall of 1913, Laura and Earle Smith, a young Iowa couple, made the gutsy—some might say foolhardy—decision to homestead in Wyoming. There, they built their first house, a claim shanty half dug out of the ground, hauled every drop of their water from a spring over a half-mile away, and fought off rattlesnakes and boredom on a daily basis.

Soon, other families moved to nearby homesteads, and the Smiths built a house closer to those neighbors. The growing community built its first publi...