Railroaded

in collaboration with The Spatial History Project

Chapter 1: Genesis, footnote 67, page 25

Ch1 fn. 67
p. 25
Tags:
Discursive, Manuscript Collections, Annual Reports, Scholarly Articles, Histories and Biographies, Special Collections (Stanford University), Politics, Spatial Relations

The most detailed account of the railroad grants comes from Public Aids to Transportation Table 13. Table 13 actually is two tables, with one table reflecting adjusted grants (that is with forfeited grants subtracted) for some railroads and another table reflecting unadjusted grants, where the amount lost by forfeiture or errors was not clear. Among the roads with adjusted grants, the Union Pacific received 11.4 million acres; the main line of the Central Pacific received 7.88 million acres, and the Kansas Pacific got 7.09 million acres. For those roads with unadjusted grants, the Northern Pacific got 39.4 million acres over its entire system. The entire Southern Pacific system (including the Central Pacific) received 17.9 million acres. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe got 14.9 million acres. By 1933 the United States government had actually patented 131,230,358 acres to the railroads. The total figure and the unadjusted figures include grants later forfeited These figures do not count nearly 4 million acres that were later voluntarily returned to settle disputes. The Canadian Pacific received 25 million acres from its government, including 6,793, 014 that the Canadian Pacific surrendered in 1891 in exchange for the forgiveness of debt due the Canadian government.

Public Aids to Transportation: Volume II Aids to Railroads and Related Subjects (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1938), Table 13.

James B. Hedges, The Federal Railway Land Subsidy Policy of Canada (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934), 63.

Also, David M. Ellis, "The Railroads and the Land Office: Administrative Policy and the Land Patent Controversy, 1864-96," Mississippi Valley Historical Review 46 (March 1960), 698.

David M. Ellis, "The Forfeiture of Railroad Land Grants, 1867-1894," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 33 (no.1, 1946), 27-60.

For land grants as of 1873, see "Congressional Land Grants for Railroads," Poor, Manual of Railroads 1873-74, 696-701.

For slow sales, Klein, The Union Pacific, 514-15.

By 1872, the Central Pacific claimed to have sold only $513,724 worth of land and had received $173,157.

Total Sales of Lands by C.P.R.R. R.Co. including also the Cal & Oregon R.R. Co. to Jan. 1, 1872, L.B. 11: 83, Box 25, Timothy Hopkins Transportation Collection, 1826-1942, M0097 Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University.