History of public land law development

page 376

376 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT Missouri was a small boon that did little to enhance the economic position of the A. & P. Most serious was the fact that its officials could not persuade Congress to have the Indian land in the territory made a part of the public domain to enable the railroad to obtain the generous grant of 25,600 acres per mile. Failure to receive the promise of 7 million or 8 million acres if and when earned by construction across the territory, combined with the nearly total absence of traffic, made it impossible for the railroad to raise the necessary funds with which to build the line. Bankruptcy was inevitable for the company had extended its credit to the utmost, had built some mileage that was unproductive, and had little further to attract investors in 1875. The eastern portion of the A. & P. that had been constructed as far as Vinita, Indian Territory, subsequently became the St. Louis and San Francisco (The Frisco). Meantime, the Santa Fe Railroad, though lacking a land grant beyond Kansas, had reached the Colorado border where its men literally fought with those employed by the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad for control of the Raton Pass, the only feasible route to Albuquerque. Having won that engagement, it pushed its construction on to Albuquerque, which it attained in 1880. It then agreed with the St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad to provide the funds with which to build to the Needles crossing of the Colorado and on to the Coast. In 1883 construction was completed from Albuquerque to the Needles, where the railroad met the Southern Pacific, which connected with San Francisco, and a third transcontinental line was ready for operation. Later the Santa Fe built lines to San Diego, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. As for the land grant of the Atlantic and Pacific, the Missouri portion and a part of the grant in New Mexico was acquired by the Frisco Lines as heirs of the A. & P. The grant of that portion of the line east of Albuquerque along the 35th parallel route that was not built, amounting to 10,795,480 acres, was forfeited in an Act of July 6, 1886.97 For the part of the line from Albuquerque to Needles and on to the Coast, which through agreement with the Frisco Lines was built by the Sante Fe, 11,500,304 acres were earned and patented.98 The fourth transcontinental grant was given on March 3, 1871, just when the movement against railroads for their land policies and rate discrimination was sweeping parts of the West. Furthermore, it was adopted within a year after the House of Representatives had approved a resolution declaring that "the policy of granting subsidies in public lands to railroads and other corporations ought to be discontinued ....,*' as is seen below." The act provided for the incorporation of the Texas Pacific Railroad which was to extend from the eastern Texas border in Harrison County (which is due west of Shreveport and Vicksburg), by way of the 32d parallel route, which had been investigated by the Pacific Railroad Commission, to El Paso, and presumably Fort Yuma, and thence to San Diego. It was given the same land grant as the Northern Pacific and the Atlantic and Pacific, beginning at El Paso on the Texas-New Mexico border to the Coast with a right-of-way of 400 feet. In the event that the line ran too close to Mexican territory to permit selection of all the land to which it was entitled, it could make lieu selections therefor within the 10-mile limit beyond the 40-mile primary area on the north side. Lands not sold within 3 years after the completion of the road were to 97Rae, "Railway Land Subsidy Policy," p. 319, says that when the A. & P. grant east of Albuquerque was forfeited the Secretary of the Interior ordered that both odd and even sections should be retained at the $2.50 price, notwithstanding the fact that the legislation of 1880 had abolished the double-minimum price for the government-reserved sections. 98 Greever, Arid Domain, passim; L. L. Waters, Steel Trails In Santa Fe (Lawrence, Kans., 1950), pp. 54 ff.; Ellis, "The Forfeiture of Railroad Land Grants, 1867-1894," p. 42. "Cong. Record, 41st Cong., 2d sess., p. 2095. The resolution was adopted without a division.