land+grants+drk

Land Grants were first used for the transcontinental railroad project.The Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads were granted 400-foot right-of-ways plus ten square miles of land for every mile of track built. For the land grant system to work as planned, the government wanted railroads to sell their land to help pay for the construction of rail lines, but no one wanted to buy the land after the rail way went through it. after the development of towns and mines around the railroad these land grants became more valuable and made the union pacific and central pacific lots of money after selling their land grants.