The park is five miles (8 km) west of Beatrice, Nebraska, on a site that includes some of the first acres successfully claimed under the Homestead Act.

The roof line of the center resembles a "single bottom plow moving through the sod," and the parking lot measures exactly one-acre (4,000 m2).

[5]The park includes 100 acres (0.40 km2) of tallgrass prairie restored to approximate the ecosystem that once covered the central plains of the United States—and that was nearly plowed into extinction by the homesteaders.

[6] The park maintains about 2.7 miles (4.3 km) of hiking trails through the prairie and the woodland surrounding Cub Creek, accessible via all-terrain wheelchair.

The school also served as a Lutheran church, a polling place for Blakely Township, and a community center for debates, clubs, and box socials.

In 1899, Daniel Freeman sued the school board after a teacher, Edith Beecher, refused to stop praying, reading the Bible, and singing gospel songs in her classroom.

[12] Proposals to create such a park were rejected[13] until during the mid-1920s, the influential Senator George W. Norris suggested a historical museum of agricultural implements be established on the Freeman property and the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution dedicated a marker there.

In 1935, Norris and newly elected congressman Henry C. Luckey of Lincoln introduced legislation to create the Homestead National Monument of America, which eventually became law in March 1936.