Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Homestead Acts were a series of United States laws that let applicants acquire ownership of government land, known as a homestead, free of charge. Together they gave away more than 160 million acres of public land, nearly 10 percent of the country, to 1.6 million homesteaders, most of them west of the Mississippi River.
President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act into law on the 20th of May 1862, after Southern states seceded and their representatives left Congress. It took effect on the 1st of January 1863.
Daniel Freeman became the first person to file a claim under the Homestead Act of 1862.
Ken Deardorff was the last person to receive title to land under the Homestead Acts, for 80 acres on the Stony River in southwestern Alaska. He met the law's requirements in 1979 but did not receive his deed until May 1988.
The Homestead Acts depleted Native American resources, as land tribes depended on was taken by the federal government and resold to settlers. Congress passed the Indian Homestead Act in 1875 to let Native family heads purchase homesteads, but only if they renounced their tribal identity and relations.
Homesteading ended nationwide with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, except in Alaska, where it remained legal until 1986.