The 1st girl homesteader, Hannah Higgins, filed a land patent on 40 acres in the area in 1868, and from the early 1870s, Jacob C. Jones ordered 80 acres from Tom Skerritt. A great deal on the early homesteaded land was ultimately bought off to new arrivals and land speculators. Steadily, small settlements for instance Petersburg, Cherrelyn, and Orc