OCR Text |
Show 356 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT ness of the canal, 5,674 feet, a grant on alternate sections was not practicable. Consequently, the state was permitted to locate the grant on any lands subject to private entry, whether mineral or nonmineral. As subsequent events were to show, the lands selected ranged all the way from not very good farmland to good timberland and to lands containing one of the world's richest copper deposits. To the other two canals were granted 500,000 acres in three acts, making a total of 1,250,000 acres given the state for canal construction in addition to 500,000 acres for "internal improvements" under the 1841 Act.46 Before the canal era had passed (and who can say that it has ever passed with the modern Soo Canal carrying more traffic than the Panama and the Suez together), Congress had granted 6,303,749 acres of public lands for canals and for river improvements in Summary of Land Grants for Canals, River Improvements, and Roads* State Canals and River Improvements Roads Acres Illinois 324,283 Indiana 1,480,409 170,580 Iowa 321,342 Michigan 1,251,236 221,013 Minnesota 200,000b New Mexico 100,000 Ohio.. 1,204,114 80,774 2,583,890 302,931 Oregon Wisconsin . .. 1,022,349 8 Public Land Statistics, 1964, pp. 8-9. b Forfeited. 46 Of the 400,000 acres given for the Portage Lake Canal, 200,000 acres were to be selected from the alternate odd sections nearest the canal, 150,000 from odd sections and 50,000 acres from even sections in the Upper Peninsula. Acts of Aug. 26, 1852, March 3, 1865, and July 3, 1866, 10 Stat. 35; 13 Stat. 519; and 14 Stat. 80, 81; Neu, "The Building of the Sault Canal," passim. addition to large sums to subscribe to the stock of companies chartered to build them. Enter the Railroads During and after the Civil War Congress revived the making of grants for wagon roads for military and post purposes; Wisconsin, Michigan, and Oregon were the beneficiaries. For such roads, alternate odd numbered sections of land on each side of the road for a distance of 3 miles were granted and lieu lands, where necessary, to be selected within 6, 10, and in one case 15 miles from the route.47 By the mid-19th century, although roads and canals were still being projected in the more remote areas, the West was demanding railroads, exhibiting a remarkable confidence in their potential for economic progress. Capital from the East and from Europe was being invested in railroads in the rapidly growing parts of the West to an extent that far exceeded the investment in internal improvements in the 1830's. New lines were being planned to Indianapolis, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and most of all to Chicago and from that city to the Mississippi at Rock Island, Dubuque, Burlington, and Quincy. The map of railroad mileage for 1860 shows eight railroads stretching out west of the Mississippi toward the Missouri at Kansas City, Council Bluffs, or some other spot with one, the Hannibal and St. Joseph, already completed and operating. The north-south mileage, however, was small.48 47 So far as wagon roads are concerned this study is solely concerned with the use of land grants to aid in their construction. For Federal construction of wagon roads see W. Turrentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West: A Study of Federal Road Surveys and Construction in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1846-1869 (Berkeley, Calif., 1952), passim. The land grants for wagon roads are summarized in Donaldson, The Public Domain, p. 260. Also see Jerry A. O'Callaghan, "Klamath Indians and the Oregon Wagon Road Grant, 1864-1938." Oregon Historical Quarterly, 53 (March 1952), 23 ff. 48 Leland H. Jenks, The Migration of British Capital to 1870 (New York, 1927), has scattered bits on British investments in American railroads. A de- |