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Show 216 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT early began a widespread campaign to bring settlers to its lands. Through well-designed and illustrated placards sent to every Post Office north of the Mason-Dixon line and east of Indiana, handbills widely distributed in rural areas and farm journals, and elaborate brochures printed by the hundreds of thousands, it brought to the attention of eastern farm folks and immigrants arriving at the major ports the advantages of settling in the prairie state. Rich soil, once broken, was easily cultivated and produced high yields. The ease of marketing, the spread of social and religious agencies were all stressed, and an almost irresistibly idyllic picture was presented. To portray Illinois as the "Garden State" of the West,, the Illinois Central enlisted the writing talents of James Caird, the most eminent English agricultural authority, Richard Cobden, Colonel Oscar Malmborg, a prominent Norwegian-American, and Francis Hoffman, a leading German-American who later became lieutenant governor of the state.92 Officials of the Illinois Central Railroad began their big advertising campaign in 1854 and 1855 and within little more than 3 years had sold 1,200,000 acres, or nearly half the company's grant, at an average price of better than $11 an acre. True, a considerable portion of these sales had to be cancelled later because they were for large blocks of lands contracted to parties for resale who were unable to carry the business after the Panic of 1857. Equally important is the size of the sales. Number of Land Sales of the Illinois Central by Amount of Acreage, 1854-1860 92 I have related the efforts of these and other men to promote emigration to Illinois in my Illinois Central Railroad and its Colonization Work (Cambridge, Mass., 1934). Persons interested in why Illinois became the state with the greatest drawing power in the 1850's should look into one of the amazingly attractive pamphlets the Illinois Central distributed broadcast with the title: The Illinois Central Rail-Road Offer for Sale Over 2,400,000 Acres Selected Prairie, Farm and Wood Lands in Tracts of any Size to Suit Purchasers, on Long Credit and at Low Interest, Situated on Each Side of their Rail-Road, Extending all the Way from the Extreme North to the South of the State of Illinois (New York, 1855). Size in Acres Number of Sales 40 5,667 80 3,754 120 492 160 1.435 200 111 240 151 280 40 320 396 Over 320 acres 407 Total number of sales 12,453 Cancellations 331 Public opinion in Illinois was not favorable to withholding railroad lands for high prices, a fact of which the officials were well aware. By 1854 they had the construction of the road well along, had selected their lands and had given them a rough appraisal; they now began their large advertising and publicity program. Their campaign coincided with an era of almost unexampled prosperity occasioned by the Crimean War, a high price for wheat and an increased flow of European capital into American railroads, land, and other investments. Land values in the West, particularly in Illinois, surged upward to such an extent that the $5-minimum placed on the railroad land caused no trouble. Possibly the willingness of the company to sell to some 1,400 squatters on its lands the 40 or 80 acres they were improving at $2.50 an acre won for it some favor. The steep rise in land values indicated that the railroad prices were not out of line. Then too, the extremely low interest rate-2 percent at the outset- charged on delayed payments won warm approval. In the midst of widespread prosperity few people grumbled. Illinois, however, was no longer a very suitable place for penniless immigrants to begin farming; it was better for them to go farther west to Iowa, Missouri, or Kansas. Immigrants coming to Illinois with considerable capital could find an abundance of land there at $4 to $10 an acre. |