The Land Grant Act of 1850[1] provided for 3.75 million acres of land to the United States to support railroad projects; by 1857 21 million acres of public lands were used for railroads in the Mississippi River valley, and the stage was set for more substantial Congressional subsidies to future railroads.[2]
The act gave land in Illinois to the Illinois Central Railroad, and land in Alabama and Mississippi to the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. The land given was in the form of alternate sections.[3]
See also
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edit- ^ An Act Granting Right of Way, and making a Grant of Land to the States of Illinois, Mississippi, and Alabama, in Aid of the Construction of a Railroad from Chicago to Mobile (9 Stat. 466)
- ^ Julian E. Zelizer, The American Congress: the building of democracy, p.288
- ^ Stover, John F.; Carnes, Mark Christopher (1999). The Routledge historical atlas of the American railroads: Routledge atlases of American history. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415921406.
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