River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1878-07-25
LAND GRANTS.
HOW RAILROADS. HAVE BEEN DE-
VEL0PEB By LIND DONATIONS.
An Able and Exhaustive Review on the
Subject--Government and the People
Benefited by the Policy of Granting
Lands to Railroads.

which we make the following extracts:
We claim that land grants have been of
greater value to the people and general govern
ment than the grants themselves have to the
companies accepting them.
Before the opening of the Western States by
land grant roads, the culture of our broad
prairies were effeetually estopped by the one
item of cost of transportation to market by the
then only means the wagon.
Wheat for instance, hauled 800 miles by
wagon, would cost 80 cents bushel its best
average value on the farm.-by rail the highest
cost for same distance will not exceed Is cents
a bushel, clear rs cents per bushel in favor of
the farmer. To Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and
Minnesota, this difference means seventy-iye.
millions of dollars annually IN the pockets OF
its farmers on their wheat crop alone.
Another important and visible value of rail-
WAYS in enriching farmers and real estate own
ers, is the enhancement of the worth OF the
lands on and within convenient reach OF the
lines of roads.
Take for illustration the field traversed by
the Burlington & Missouri river Road in Ne
braska the Missouri, Kansas Texas, the Ce-
dar Rapids & Missouri River, Iowa Falls
Sioux City, st. Paul Sioux City, st. Paul
Pacific, and the Northern Pacific roads, districts
entirely ne W, sparsely settled, and the land al
most exclusively owned by the United States
government at the time of the grants to these
roads.
The then extreme value of lands was the
government ~l.ZO per dCIc.
Reports from these roads show their aggre-
gatcs to be some 100000 acres, at an av-
erage 1878 per acre.
1T ir to assume thai contiguous lands
have equal value, rule, however, rail-
roa IS are sold below the gel eral average
val which those adjoining are held.
include the sales of land grant roads
in lder States, such as the Illinois Central,
Ca Rapids Il Indiana, Flint & Pere Mar
q.ette and Chicago, Burlington 4 Quincy in
Iowa, whose aggregate sales of over 3,0O00 900
acres averaged Sl0.25 per acre, the average
would be 1913 per acre, an actual advance of
S6.0S per acre inuring to the immediate benefit
of those holding lands along the lines OF these
roads. Assuming that only an equal area of
contiguous lands is taken, the owners of these
adjoining tracts have been enriched nearly fifty
millions of dollars. We can, however, illustrate
this point more fully by taking the broad field
of the United States, in which it is estimated
that there 271 S23, 600 acres of land directly
affected in value by the building of railways.
Including the older States this incl ease is
estimated at $3.50 per acre, which has added
to the wealth of the farmers of our country
the enormous sum of IS, 800, 500, 000--yet to
this amazing increase the farmer has scarcely
contributed anything save the accidental own
ership of the soil. Their actual money invest
ment in railroads of the United States is ascer-
tanned to be less than two per cent. of the total
capital invested in the roads that have SO great
ly enriched them.
On the other hand, however, the capital that
built these roads and which has so enriched
the people along their lines has not returned a
profit of three per cent. per annum to its invest
ors.
In addition to the doubled value and quick
sales of its lands that we have before noticed,
the government derives large pecuniary ben
eft from the building of these roads. In the
matter of transportation of army and Indian
supplies, far in excess of what is usually sup
posed From statistics of 1873, in the war
department, the only ones at present obtaina-
BILE by the committee, we find the average cost
of wagon transportation on the most favorable
contracts in the Western States and territories
$500 per 100 pounds per 100 miles. The
highest railroad rate will not exceed Is cents
per 100 pounds for the same distance.
One item alone of $50 600 lbs over the
Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad that year
made saving to the government of $3.50, 600.
The same year the Union. Central Kansas
Pacific roads carried government freight amount
ing to &c. 400, 900 pounds an average distance of
some 700 miles, at a cost of S734 800. At the
average rate of wagon haul over the same
ground the cost would have been clear saving
to the government on this one item of
So, 1874. 700.
With time taken to secure full data of the
government business, the showing would be
astonishing.
The United States land office records show
the absorption of public lands since the COM
mencement of the construction of land grant
roads in the borde- States and Territories, tEat
before the stimuiant TO immigration by tie
promise of railways, were, except the settle
ments on the borders of navigable streams
almost entirely without occupants.
The dates included are the fiscal years end
ing June 80, 1864, and June 80, 1877, and are
as follows:
wyoming, &C, $50 acres: Colorado, / ,164, 713
acres; Nebraska, 6,569,615 acres; Kansas,
1857, 488 acres; Minnesota, $3.50, l5S acres;
Dakota, 1864,6S acres; Oregon, l, 406, 813
acres; Washington, 1884, 9OS acres.
A grand aggregate in thirteen years OF
twenty-six Millions three hundred and i've
thousaiid three hundred and forty-oae acres of
heretofore unoccupied lands, that to-day are
paying direct tribute TO the government in the
shape of yearly taxes, and adding to the wealth
of the country by their products.
For the past nine months, however, the i'm
migration to the lands along the lines of these
roads has been unparalleled in the history of
the West--but your committee have only been
able TO get statistics from Minnesota and east
ern Dakota.
These reports show that in these districts
alone for the six months ending April /, the
United States government has disposed of
1851, $50 acres, and the railroad companies
S34. 500 acres.
The foregoing figures relative to sales of gov
eminent lands represent only entries made un-
der the presumption and homestead laws. rep
resenting cash purchases by actual settlers,
procuring lands whose values are to be lastingly
enhanced by the railroads built and building
under the stimulus of land grants. The rail-
road sales are almost wholly to actual settlers.
The foregoing facts are TO great extent gem
eraI in their nature, and the committee would
have been glad to have had specific reports from
the land commissioners to their respective
roads which would have certainly added
largely to what seems the convincing argument
ALREADY made, but the limited time in which
collate them rendered this impossible, ana we
IN he cor nj wit AZ n
have in hand.
Your committee however, have thought
advisable to make specific illustration, and
have taken the State of Illinois IS the oldest
and Minnesota as the youngest of the terEi-
tories that have reached their present prosper
Gus position as thedirect outgrowth of the land
grant policy.
As to the benefits to the State of Illinois,
Peter Dsggy. land commissioner of the lllinoi.
Central, writes to the committee as follows;
The grant T. this road originally embraced
an area of 2,595, zoo acres. When made, Sep
TENDER 90 1850, the population of the State
was ISL, 470. The census of 1870 gave us
2, 539. s9l, and for the past seven years it has
probably been increased in equal proportion.
The statistics of lands in cultivation IN
1850 are not at hand, but the increase IN culti-
waited acres will far exceed that of the popula-
lion, and more particularly so along the line Of
the road. The road when first located passed
through an almost uninhabifed portion of the
State. With the exception of an occasional
old settlement town or village, the prairie
grass and native forest trees we're the only
things found stationary above the soil AT
that time. vacant government lands by
the thousands of acres could be found almost
the road was first completed. IN 1850 it could
be travelled for miles ana miles over an unob-
strucfed prairie, and yet not fence. house. OF
any other sign Of hahitation or even civiliza-