With land ownership as the lure, the Homestead Act of 1862 drew more than 600,000 people to the West. Among them were Esther Strasburger and her two sisters, who settled in Montana in 1909. A great-granddaughter who still lives nearby, for whom the land and its rewards are a way of life, helps tell the story of these remarkable women who accepted the challenges of homesteading and staked their own claims to the West.