Last updated: August 3, 2026
Person
Edith Eudora Ammons Kohl
Project Gutenberg eBook #24352. Public Domain in the USA. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24352/243
Quick Facts
Significance:
Author, single woman homesteader
Place of Birth:
Carlyle Township, Clinton County, Illinois
Date of Birth:
July 8, 1879
Place of Death:
Denver, Colorado
Date of Death:
July 19, 1959
Place of Burial:
Wheat Ridge, Jefferson County, Colorado
Cemetery Name:
Crown Hill Cemetery
Sisters Edith Ammons and Ida Ammons homesteaded on former reservation land in the early 20th century, a time when the American West presented both opportunity and hardship. Their experiences as single homesteaders demonstrate how women defined aspects of frontier life for themselves.
Edith and Ida Ammons built their lives on the vast plains of South Dakota during a time when few women dreamt of owning property. Homesteading turned their unlikely dreams into a reality. In 1908, the two sisters filed a homestead claim on 160 acres of prairie grasslands that were formerly a part of the Lower Brule Indian Reservation. The homesteading experience was harsh and demanding, yet the sisters found purpose in their claim.
Edith Eudora Ammons was born in 1884 in Huey, Illinois. Ida Mary was her sister. Both sisters faced a tragic loss early in life when their mother passed away in 1892. Additional health concerns and difficult family finances inspired them to leave Illinois for the American West. Edith recalled finding a pamphlet that announced the opening of Lower Brule Indian Reservation for homesteading. Following the 1887 Dawes Act, Lower Brule lands were divided into allotments to promote Native assimilation through family-owned farms: each head of a Native family would get 160 acres of farmland or 320 acres of grazing land. Once Native allotments were assigned, the remaining tribal land was opened to non-Native settlers. Edith and Ida made their claims under the Lower Brule Indian Lands Act of 1906 (34 Stat 124) – Ida in 1906 and Edith in 1908 (GLO Dakota Territory Tract Books). That law stated that “excess” tribal lands “shall be disposed of under the general provisions of the homestead laws of the United States.” The Ammon sisters staked their homestead claims on that former reservation land near McClure, South Dakota, north of Presho.1 Rather than fulfill the five-year residency requirement, both sisters decided to commute their claims and pay $1.25 per acre (GLO Accession No. 23530 and No. 133602).
Life on the prairie was desolate and unforgiving for the Ammons sisters. As Edith later wrote: “We were frightened and homesick. Whatever we had pictured in our imaginations, it bore no resemblance to the tar-paper shack without creature comforts; nor had we counted on the desolation of the prairie on which we were marooned.”2 Despite these hardships, Edith and Ida persevered even though many thought women were incapable of success. “Homesteading was a gamble: ‘Yeah, the United States Government is betting you 160 acres of land that you can’t live on it eight months.’ Ida and I weren’t betting; we were holding on, living down to the grass roots.”3 In doing so, the Ammons sisters lived from the land itself, rooted in their determination, adaptability, and strength.4
The sisters didn’t stop with their homestead claim. Edith launched her own newspaper press titled The Reservation Wand. The paper employed members of the Lakota Tribal Nation and served as a means for individuals to keep tabs on friends, family, and the settlement of the region. Tragedy soon struck in 1909. A devastating fire destroyed the business. Ida married rancher Imbert Miller but subsequently died during childbirth. With the loss of both her business and then her sister, Edith left South Dakota and moved to Wyoming. She worked as a locator helping homesteaders find and file land claims. She married architect and inventor Aaron Wesley Kohl and they relocated to Denver in 1920. Edith worked as a freelance writer and feature writer for The Denver Post from the early 1930s to the 1950s and wrote several books. She published Land of Burnt Thigh in 1938 to tell the story of settlement on the Great Plains.
Like many homesteaders, tragedy and loss played an outsized role in the lives of the Ammons sisters. Their homestead claim was only made possible through the loss of tribal land and forced allotment for the Sioux living on the Lower Brule Indian Reservation. Edith’s business burned to the ground and her sister Ida died at a young age. Like other women, however, they also experienced an unusual degree of freedom as homesteaders. They plowed fields, planted seeds, and harvested crops. They started businesses and played major roles in their communities. They defined success for themselves as women in the American West.
Bibliography
Primary Sources
Ammons, Ida M., October 19, 1908. General Land Office, Bureau of Land Management. https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=23530&docClass=SER&sid=v3t4q5bq.pvh#patentDetailsTabIndex=1
“Edith Eudora Ammons Kohl (1879-1959).” Find a Grave. Accessed October 3, 2025. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/203454942/edith_eudora-kohl
FamilySearch. “United States, Census, 1900. Entry for Thomas Ammons and Carrie Ammons”. Accessed January 20, 2025. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MSSX-K1Q
Kohl, Edith. Land of The Burnt Thigh. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1938.
Paige, Joseph. Ida Marion “Mary” Ammons Miller. Photograph. Presho Cemetery, Presho, Lyman County, South Dakota, n.d.
Secondary Sources
Armitage, Susan, and Elizabeth Jameson. The Women’s West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988.
Hensley, Marcia Meredith. Staking Her Claim: Women Homesteading the West. High Plains Press, 2008.
Tenement Museum. "If You Can Make It Here: Becoming American through the Homestead Act." May 19, 2015. https://www.tenement.org/blog/if-you-can-make-it-here-becoming-american-through-the-homestead-act/
“Lower Brule Sioux Tribe Traditional Territory.” n.d. Lowerbrulesiouxtribe. https://www.lowerbrulesiouxtribe.com/lower-brule-territory.
“March is Women’s History Month; State Historical Society Recognizes Kohl,” NEWS.SD.gov, March 27, 2002, March is Women's History
Month; State Historical Society recognizes Kohl - News
Nevillie, Alan L, and Alyssa Kaye Anderson. 2013. “The Diminishment of the Great Sioux Reservation: Treaties, Tricks, and Time.” Great Plains Quarterly 33 (4): 237–51. https://doi.org/10.2307/24467580.
O'Mara, B. Katie. "Dakota Images: Edith Ammons Kohl." South Dakota History 29, no. 1 (1999): 86–90. https://www.sdhspress.com/journal/south-dakota-history-29-1/dakota-images-edith-ammons-kohl/vol-29-no-1-dakota-images-edith-ammons-kohl.pdf
Simmons, Walter A. “Woman Pens History Of Brule Territory; Does It Grippingly.” The Daily Argus-Leader. October 5, 1938.