![]() Consequently, the Library's collections also include some foreign-language maps aimed at both the immigration already on the East Coast and the prospective one in Europe.Ĭompetition between speculators may have led to the idea of the distortion of railroad maps to emphasize one state, area, or line to the advantage of the advertiser. ![]() As early as 1868 most western railroads established profitable land departments and bureaus of immigration, with offices in Europe, to sell land and promote foreign settlement in the western United States. Land grant maps were frequently used by land speculators to advertise railroad lands for sale to the public. Numerous maps of the United States and individual states and counties were made which clearly indicated the sections of the granted land and the railroad rights-of-way. General Land Office, now the Bureau of Land Management. Responsibility for surveying and mapping the grants fell to the U.S. Usually the companies received from the federal government, in twenty- or fifty-mile strips, alternate sections of public land for each mile of track that was built. Between 18 extensive cessions of public lands were made to states and to railroad companies to promote railroad construction. The second half of the nineteenth century was the era of railroad land grants.
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