I remember looking at old Metsker maps of Washington counties when I was a kid and wondering about all those checkerboards of green and white land. My dad told

I remember looking at old Metsker maps of Washington counties when I was a kid and wondering about all those checkerboards of green and white land. My dad told me the green was public land, and couldn't really explain why it was divided that way. So it is, literally, divided up like a checkerboard. Wikipedia has an enlightening article on it [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land)