Land Grants

[Murphy_Siding]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Eric Johnson

As mentioned eariler., the "land grant " is usually thought of as the Federal one, but many orads, like the GN, got extensive city and county local land grants as an incentive to not bypass an area. Hill used the bypass threat very often to get rights of way when he was building. It usually worked, since towns were morbidly afraid of being bypassed by the RR in the 1880s and 90s.

History books about our city show that several city “booster” clubs raised money way back when to get railroads to come in to town in the 1870’s. Many times, it was the donation of ground for a depot or trainyard. With the first railroad into town, I think they were a little more direct-just gave the railroad a bucket-o-money.[:)]

[Anonymous]

Great Northern had no government land grants of it’s own except for the Minnesota state land grant provided in the original charter of the GN’s original predecessor Minnesota & Pacific in 1857.J.J.Hill did use it as leverage when he had problems getting ROW for the GN on the west coast.

Great Northern almost bypassed Spokane.By my understanding,the original survey took the GN main several miles north of Spokane.The Northern Pacific had a monopoly on area business in Spokane and was charging exhorbitant prices for service.So a deal was made with Hill to build thru the city(a mistake for sure given the route followed,a branchline would have been better).And why didn’t BN follow the original GN survey north of Spokane instead of building the Latah Jct bridge?That would have been a better route for intermodal and grain trains.

Have a good one.

Bill
Iowa