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> You can see the checkerboard ownership even in early cattle country that had no history of railroad grants That’s interesting, there are places where public/
by kristjansson 3y ago
> You can see the checkerboard ownership even in early cattle country that had no history of railroad grants
That’s interesting, there are places where public/private checkerboards emerged naturally? The wiki link only tells the land-grant and reservation part of the story.
- defrost 3y agoThere were also "released for public sale" checkerboards practices and tribal reservations that were checkerboarded. I had a better grasp and notes on this in the late 1990s, if you read the wikipedia page closely I seem to recall they make brief passing reference to both Homestead and Dawes Acts (~ 31st congress (?) era IIRC). The railroad grants were the largest best known example by a long shot I believe, however not the first or only example and all based on an ealier gridding abstraction and a practice of encouraging development to spread out. There's an intertwining of rich private interests and public policy .. people with entire full PLSS squares were able to influence land release patterns and the idea of vast endless "untouched" lands where you weren't forced to have neighbours had appeal.