What was the land grant for the transcontinental railroad?

The government loaned a total of $64,623,512 to the transcontinental companies. These loans were for the most part paid back at six percent interest. The law also provided that a company could be given up to twenty sections (a section is a square mile) of land for every mile of track put down.



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The total of public land grants given to the railroads by states and the federal government was about 180 million acres. At the time, the value of this land was about one dollar per acre, which was the average price realized by the government for sales in the land grant states during that period.

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From 1850 to 1871, the railroads received more than 175 million acres (71 million ha) of public land – an area more than one tenth of the whole United States and larger in area than Texas. Railroad expansion provided new avenues of migration into the American interior.

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Together, the Burlington and Union Pacific Railroads had sold more than 7 million acres to private purchasers. Over 9.6 million acres was obtained free of charge under the Homestead Act. The railroads did not abandon settlers after they sold them the land.

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The checkerboard pattern of the land grants had begun during the canal land grant era, and continued with the railroad grants as a concession to opponents both of land subsidies and of interstate railroads. Land grant proponents compromised by agreeing to grant every other square-mile section of land to the railroads.

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These men, names like James Hill, Jay and George Gould, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Edward Harriman, and Collis P. Huntington are largely responsible for building much of the country's network.

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In 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act, which designated the 32nd parallel as the initial transcontinental route, and provided government bonds to fund the project and large grants of lands for rights-of-way.

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The rail line was built by three private companies over public lands provided by extensive US land grants. Building was financed by both state and US government subsidy bonds as well as by company-issued mortgage bonds.

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Cornelius Vanderbilt (May 27, 1794 – January 4, 1877), nicknamed the Commodore, was an American business magnate who built his wealth in railroads and shipping.

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