Jewel Kilcher

Jewel, the singer, author and actress whose current hit song is "Intuition," has been honored as a "Homestead Legacy" by Homestead National Historical Park, a unit of the National Park Service. Jewel spent much of her youth on the Homer, Alaska homestead of her grandfather. Since 2000, the park has memorialized famous homesteaders or homesteader descendants on large banners that hang outside its Beatrice, Nebraska visitor center. A banner featuring a photo of Jewel performing in the foreground and another of her grandfather's homesteader cabin covered in snow in the background now hangs among the collection. "Homestead National Historical Park is pleased to feature Jewel on a Homestead Legacies banner," said monument Superintendent Mark Engler. "She is a very popular artist, and her personal connection to the Homestead Act demonstrates how far-reaching and important the Act truly was. The Homestead Act touched many lives, and Jewel is an excellent example of that. People from all walks of life and in many different careers have homesteader history in their backgrounds."

Homestead National Historical Park commemorates the lives and accomplishments of all pioneers, and changes to land and people that the Homestead Act of 1862 brought about. Under this law, more than 270 million acres, 10 percent of the land in the United States, were claimed by individuals. Lands could be claimed until 1976 in the lower 48 states and until 1986 in Alaska.