How the public domain has been squandered, map showing the 139,403,026 acres of the people's land - equal to 871,268 farms of 160 acres each, worth at $2 an acre, $278,806,052, given by Republican Congresses to railroad corporations
How the Public Domain has Been Squandered - Railroad map (1884) |
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| Date: | 1884 |
| Author: | Rand McNally |
| Dwnld: | Full Size (12.07mb) |
| Source: | Library of Congress |
| Print Availability: | |
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| See our Prints Page for more details | |
This map isn't part of any series, but we have other maps of railroads that you might want to check out.
I do believe that these guys had some kind of axe to grind, yeah? Stodgy old Rand McNally of all people printed this map... but I got no idea if they had any dog in this fight, or if they just had a print job to do.
Some historian please tell me about where they were coming from, and maybe a quick gloss of the pros and cons of both sides. I'd be appreciative.
In order to encourage development of the middle and western portions of the country, Congress granted parcels of land to rail road companies adjacent to new rail roads that they built. These formerly uninhabited ‘public lands’ were then sold by the rail roads to farmers and developers. This was established (IIRC) as part of the Railroad Act and Homestead Act, both of the early 1860s
Even though land could be claimed by farmers once they developed the land under the Homestead Act, on its own it was less than fully successful since there was no method to move the grains and livestock to market, other than horse wagon.
Lands immediately adjacent to rail roads developed faster and grew into today’s western cities. The lines also provided a way to move food back to the east and west coasts easily.
This is evidently a Democratic party campaign poster suggesting that it would be better for those lands to not be developed since the rail roads, as intended under the law, sold the land to raise money to build the tracks.