Looking at maps showing Federal lands of the West, you quickly notice a checkerboard arrangement incongruously drawn without seeming reason.  Certainly, no topographical purpose.  You now see the result of the rail land grants – grabs – of the 19^th century.

One of Abraham Lincoln’s main planks to his 1860 presidential campaign became realized by the 1862 Pacific Railway Act.  This gave Congress the ability to grant land and low-cost loans to railway companies building lines across the West.  Lincoln’s goal was a transcontinental line to unite California and the Pacific Coast to the rest of the country.