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Show AN INCONGRUOUS LAND SYSTEM 457 acres were sold in 160-acre lots but at more than $2.50 an acre, and only 127,000 acres were sold as the amendment provided. The average price for which the land sold was about $5 an acre.47 Congress added what was essentially the homestead clause to a measure to renew a land grant for a railroad to extend from Montgomery, Alabama, to the Tennessee state line and to a bill to extend a former grant to aid in the construction of a military wagon road from Coos Bay to Rose-burg, in Oregon. In the latter case, because of failure to carry out the requirement, the remaining lands-some 96,000 acres-were revested in the United States and have since been administered along with the O. & C. lands. Congress also wrote into an act to grant land to the Texas and Pacific Railroad a requirement that all lands thus granted which had not been sold within 3 years after the completion of the road were to be subject to settlement and preemption "like other public lands" at $2.50 an acre. This last major grant was later forfeited.48 Unused Railroad Grants Reformers next turned their attention to the unearned grants. In response to their demands Congress forfeited a grant in Louisiana in 1870, in 1874 two small grants in California, and in 1876 and 1877 two grants in Kansas. All these actions were taken either at the request of the state legislatures or in agreement with many interests in the states. Altogether, 667,741 acres of land were thus forfeited and restored either to private entry (unrestricted entry) or were held for homesteaders and preemptors.49 Forfeitures reached a high " Ellis, loc. cit., p. 300. 48 Acts of March 3, 1869 and of March 3, 1871, 15 Stat. 340 and 16 Stat. 576 and 580; Ellis, loc. cit., p. 274. 49 David Maldyn Ellis, "The Forfeiture of Railroad Land Grants" (Master's thesis, Cornell University, 1939), pp. 24 ff. point in the eighties with the enactment of a number of special forfeiture acts affecting two large grants in Arizona and New Mexico-the Atlantic and Pacific and the Texas Pacific. These, with three other smaller grants, came to 28,252,747 acres. These victories only whetted the appetite of the land reformers who now wanted a general forfeiture act to require action against the largest of the railroad grants, the Northern Pacific. In 1890, a general act was adopted but only after safeguarding features had been included which excluded its application to the more valuable of the Northern Pacific lands. Under this act a total of 5,627,438 acres were forfeited.50 Associated with the movement for the forfeiture of railroad land grants whose conditions had not been fulfilled, was the demand for the restoration to public entry of an estimated 100 million acres that had been withdrawn at the time the grants were made and many years later were still unearned and not released from the withdrawal orders. During this stage no preemption, homestead, or other right or improvement could be made on the land.51 Numerous were the complaints 501 have borrowed heavily from Ellis's master's thesis cited above and the summary published in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, XXXIII (June 1946) , 27 ff., as "The Forfeiture of Railroad Land Grants, 1867-1894." B1 Almost 200 million acres were promised either states or railroads for construction but many millions were lost through prior entries. The total withdrawals probably were much larger than 100 million acres, but possibly the amount withdrawn at any one time may have been no larger. Much of the mileage was built and the railroad lands thus earned were available for conveyance to the companies. Both the granted and the reserved lands were withheld for too many years, the settlers felt, though the Land Office tried to restore to entry the reserved sections when the railroad had selected its lands. Most criticized was the withholding of granted but unearned lands in the primary area and even more so, the alternate sections in the indemnity area. Ellis, "The Forfeiture of the Rail- (Cont. on p. 458.) |