Dr. Richard Edwards haD been diligently working on this matter since 2008. See the link for his article below.
Richard Edwards is a primary leader in the “Homestead Records Project,” a consortium formed to digitize, preserve and make accessible approximately two million original homestead land-entry files.
This unfortunate decision would leave the important homesteading states of Colorado, Montana, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, New Mexico, Washington, and California back in the hard-to-access and costly-to-access paper records regime. I believe NARA’s decision is mistaken, and that it should be a HIGH priority to finish digitizing these records. Richard Edwards, Director, Center for Great Plains Studies, Professor of Economics, August 31, 2018
