Land grant

• In 1886, the Midland Railway of Western Australia was granted land concessions to build and operate a railway from Midland, near Perth, to Walkaway, near Geraldton. This was built, but taken over by the government railway in the 1950s. It was and is 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge.
• In 1889, a land grant railway from Roebuck Bay in Western Australia to Angle Pole in South Australia was proposed. This would have been 1000 miles (1600 km) long. Angle Pole was a locality where the Telegraph line had a bend in it. It was stillborn. The gauge would have been 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in).[3]
• In 1897, a transcontinental North-South land grant railway was proposed to complete the missing link between Oodnadatta and Darwin, the latter then called Palmerston or Port Darwin. The plan was abandoned, though the government railway was extended in the 1920s from Oodnadatta to Alice Springs, with similar extensions at the Darwin end. It was originally 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge, but was replaced by a new 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 ¹⁄₂ in) gauge line on a different route.
• In 1909, a land grant railway was proposed in Queensland from Charleville to Point Parker on the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, but the plan was abandoned.[4]

In America, starting in the 16th century, land grants were given for the purpose of establishing settlements, missions, and farms.[5] England started with a headright system, used both by the Virginia Company of London and the Plymouth Colony, but later used primarily in colonies south of Maryland. Under this system, emigrants or those paying for their passage would receive land if they survived for a certain period of time (although many indentured servants did not survive their contracts and enslaved Africans were ineligible for headrights). Countries granting land included Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Britain.

As English colonial law developed, headrights became patents and a patentee had to improve the land. Under this doctrine of planting and seeding, the patentee was required to cultivate 1-acre (4,000 m²) of land and build a small house on the property, otherwise the patent would revert to the government.[6]

Between 1783 and 1821, Spain offered land grants to anyone who settled in their colony of Florida. When the United States acquired that land by treaty, it agreed to honor all valid land grants. As a result, years of litigation ensued over the validity of many of the Spanish Land Grants.

Spain and Mexico used the same system of offering land grants along the Rio Grande River near the Texas/Mexico border. These grants were given to help colonization of the area, initially by the Spanish crown, and later by Mexican authorities nationals, and strengthen frontier towns along the Texas border. During the Mexican period of California (and other portions of Mexican territories inherited from New Spain),the Mexican government granted individuals hundreds of ranchos or large tracts of land. The ranchos established land-use patterns that remain recognizable in the California of today.[7] Controversy over community land grant claims in New Mexico persist to this day.[8]

Future President Thomas Jefferson crafted the Ordinance of 1784 which carved out ten prospective states west of the Appalachian Mountains and established the basis for the Public Land Survey System. The Land Ordinance of 1785 provided a method for settling that land and establishing governmental institutions, which became federal land policy until 1862. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established the Northwest Territory, pursuant to which homesteading settlers could buy land, and certain land was set aside for public schools and other purposes. The Federal Government acquired additional lands by treaties with various Native American Tribes, such as the 1833 Treaty of Chicago by which many eastern tribes agreed to settle across the Mississippi River. Revenues from public land purchases were a major source of funding for the federal government through the 19th centuries, along with tariff revenues, since the federal income tax was not established until the 20th century.

Starting with the American Revolutionary War, United States veterans often received land grants instead of backpay or other remuneration.[9] Bounty-land warrants, often for 160 acres, were issued to United States military veterans from 1775 to 1855, thus including veterans of the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War as well as various Indian wars. The land grants helped settle the Northwest Territory (and later smaller units such as the Indiana Territory, Illinois Territory and Wisconsin Territory) and as well as the Platte Purchase in Missouri.[10][11] Eligibility for the warrants expanded over the years through new Congressional acts of 1842, 1850, 1852, and 1855 to the point where they could be sold or could be handed out to descendants. The warrant program was discontinued before the American Civil War.[10][11]

During the 19th century, various states (or even smaller units) as well as the federal government made extensive land grants to encourage internal improvements, usually to improve transportation, such as construction of bridges and canals. The Land Grant Act of 1850 provided for 3.75 million acres of land to the 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.[12] Universities were also beneficiaries of land grants.[13] All five of the transcontinental railroads in the United States were built using land grants.[14]

The Morrill Land-Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890 provided for the establishment of land-grant colleges.

There is general agreement that the United States' federal policy of offering land grants had a positive impact on economic development in the 19th century.[15]