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RAILROAD AND WAGON ROAD GRANTS

Cross references: See subtitle "Railroad Rights of Way" under "Alaska," pp. 47-57; subtitles "Grants of Lands to Railroads for Reservoirs" and "Rights of Way over Indian Lands-Railroads " under "Indian Lands," pp. 272, 274.

GRANTS TO UNION PACIFIC AND CENTRAL PACIFIC
RAILROADS

An Act To aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military and other purposes

1

Pacific railroad.

Name of corpora

Common seal.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That [certain persons mentioned] are hereby created and erected into a body corporate and politic in deed and in law, by the name, style, and title of "The tion. Union Pacific Railroad Company;" and by that name shall have perpetual succession, and shall be able to sue and to be sued, plead and be impleaded, defend and be defended, in all courts of law and equity within the United States, and may make and have a common seal; and the said corporation is hereby authorized and empowered to lay out, locate, construct, furnish, maintain, and enjoy a continuous railroad and telegraph, with the appurte- telegraph. nances, from a point on the one hundredth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich, between the south margin of the valley of the Republican River and the north margin of the valley of the Platte River, in the Territory of Nebraska, to the western boundary of Nevada Territory, upon the route and terms hereinafter provided, and is hereby vested with all the powers, privileges, and immunities necessary to carry into effect the purposes of this Act as herein set forth.

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Railroad and

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the right of Right of way. way through the public lands be, and the same is hereby, granted to said company for the construction of said railroad and telegraph line; and the right, power, and authority is hereby given to said company to take from the public lands adjacent to the line of said road, earth, Materials. stone, timber, and other materials for the construction thereof; said right of way is granted to said railroad to the extent of two hundred feet in width on each side of

1Amended by sec. 4 of the act of July 2, 1864 (13 Stat. 356), p. 408.

Indian titles to be extinguished.

Alternate sections
of land granted
to company.

said railroad where it may pass over the public lands, including all necessary grounds for stations, buildings, workshops, and depots, machine shops, switches, side tracks, turntables, and water stations. The United States shall extinguish as rapidly as may be the Indian titles to all lands falling under the operation of this Act and required for the said right of way and grants hereinafter made.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That there be, and is hereby, granted to said company, for the purpose of aiding in the construction of said railroad and telegraph line, and to secure the safe and speedy transportation of the mails, troops, munitions of war, and public stores thereon, every alternate section of public land, designated by odd numbers, to the amount of five alternate sections per mile on each side of said railroad, on the line thereof, and within the limits of ten miles on each side of said road, not sold, reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, and to which a preemption or homestead claim may not have attached, at the time the line of said road is definitely fixed: Provided, That all mineral lands shall be excepted from the operation of this Act; but where the same shall contain timber, the timber thereon is hereby granted to said company. And Lands, when sub- all such lands, so granted by this section, which shall not be sold or disposed of by said company within three years after the entire road shall have been completed, shall be subject to settlement and preemption, like other lands, at a price not exceeding one dollar and twenty-five cents. per acre, to be paid to said company.2

Mineral lands.

Timber.

ject to settle

ment, etc.

Patents for

lands, when and how to issue.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That whenever said company shall have completed forty consecutive miles of any portion of said railroad and telegraph line, ready for the service contemplated by this Act, and supplied with all necessary drains, culverts, viaducts, crossings, sidings, bridges, turnouts, watering places, depots, equipments, furniture, and all other appurtenances of a first class railroad, the rails and all the other iron used in the construction and equipment of said road to be American manufacture of the best quality, the President of the Commissioners. United States shall appoint three commissioners to examine the same and report to him in relation thereto; and if it shall appear to him that forty consecutive miles of said railroad and telegraph line have been completed and equipped in all respects as required by this Act, then, upon certificate of said commissioners to that effect, patents shall issue conveying the right and title to said. lands to said company, on each side of the road as far as the same is completed, to the amount aforesaid; and patents shall in like manner issue as each forty miles of

Amended by sec. 4 of the Act of July 2, 1864 (13 Stat. 356), p. 408.

Company to ren

said railroad and telegraph line are completed, upon certificate of said commissioners. Any vacancies occurring in said board of commissioners by death, resignation, or otherwise, shall be filled by the President of the United States: Provided, however, That no such com- der statement on missioners shall be appointed by the President of the oath. United States unless there shall be presented to him a statement, verified on oath by the president of said company, that such forty miles have been completed, in the manner required by this Act, and setting forth with certainty the points where such forty miles begin and where the same end; which oath shall be taken before a judge of a court of record.

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To complete road.

be designated in

SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That said company Company to file shall file their assent to this Act, under the seal of said assent. company, in the Department of the Interior, within one year after the passage of this Act, and shall complete said railroad and telegraph from the point of beginning as herein provided, to the western boundary of Nevada Territory before the first day of July, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-four: Provided, That within two years after the passage of this Act said company shall designate the general route of said road, as near as may General route to be, and shall file a map of the same in the Department of two years. the Interior, whereupon the Secretary of the Interior Map to be filed. shall cause the lands within fifteen miles of said designated route or routes to be withdrawn from preemption, private entry, and sale; and when any portion of said route shall be finally located, the Secretary of the Interior shall cause the said lands hereinbefore granted to be surveyed and set off as fast as may be necessary for the purposes herein named: Provided, That in fixing the Point of junction. point of connection of the main trunk with the eastern connections, it shall be fixed at the most practicable point for the construction of the Iowa and Missouri branches, as hereinafter provided.

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Central Pacific

pany may conand telegraph

SEC. 9. * The Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, a corporation existing under the laws Railroad Comof the State of California, are hereby authorized to con- struct railroad struct a railroad and telegraph line from the Pacific coast, ne at or near San Francisco, or the navigable waters of the Sacramento River, to the eastern boundary of California, upon the same terms and conditions, in all respects, as are contained in this Act for the construction of said railroad and telegraph line first mentioned, and to meet and connect with the first mentioned railroad and telegraph line on the eastern boundary of California. Each of said Companies to file companies shall file their acceptance of the conditions of act.

Amended by sec. 4 of the act of July 2, 1864 (13 Stat. 356), p. 408.

acceptance of this

Central Pacific may continue construction.

Amendments of act of July 7, 1862.

this Act in the Department of the Interior within six months after the passage of this Act.

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Sec. 10. * and in case said first-named company shall complete their line to the eastern boundary of California before it is completed across said State by the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, said first-named company is hereby authorized to continue in constructing the same through California, with the consent of said State, upon the terms mentioned in this Act, until said roads shall meet and connect, and the whole line of said railroad and telegraph is completed; and the Central Pacific Railroad Company of California, after completing its road across said State, is authorized to continue the construction of said railroad and telegraph through the Territories of the United States to the Missouri River, including the branch roads specified in this Act, upon the routes hereinbefore and hereinafter indicated, on the terms and conditions provided in this Act in relation to the said Union Pacific Railroad Company, until said roads shall meet and connect, and the whole line of said railroad and branches and telegraph is completed.

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An Act To amend an Act entitled "An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean, and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes," approved July first, eighteen hundred and sixty-two

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SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That section three of said Act be hereby amended by striking out the word "five," where the same occurs in said section, and by inserting in lieu thereof the word "ten; " and by striking out the word "ten," where the same occurs in said section, and by inserting in lieu thereof the word "twenty." And section seven of said Act is hereby amended by striking out the word "fifteen," where the same occurs in said section, and inserting in lieu thereof the word Mineral land not "twenty-five." And the term "mineral land," wherever the same occurs in this Act, and the Act to which this is an amendment, shall not be construed to include coal and iron land. And any lands granted by this Act, or the Act to which this is an amendment, shall not defeat homestead, etc., or impair any preemption, homestead, swamp land, or other lawful claim, nor include any government reservation or mineral lands, or the improvements of any bona fide settler, or any lands returned and denomi

to include coal

and iron.

Preemption,

rights not af

fected.

Also see subtitle " Settlers, Adjustments, and Forfeitures," p. 457.

tion.

nated as mineral lands, and the timber necessary to support his said improvements as a miner, or agriculturist, to be ascertained under such rules as have been or may be established by the commissioner of the general land-office, in conformity with the provisions of the preemption laws: Provided, That the quantity thus Limit to exempexempted by the operation of this Act, and the Act to which this Act is an amendment, shall not exceed one hundred and sixty acres for each settler who claims as an agriculturist, and such quantity for each settler who claims as a miner, as the said commissioner may establish by general regulation: Provided, also, That the Timber. phrase "but where the same shall contain timber, the timber thereon is hereby granted to said company," in the proviso to said section three, shall not apply to the timber growing or being on any land farther than ten miles from the centre line of any one of said roads or branches mentioned in said Act, or in this Act. And Lands granted to all lands shall be excluded from the operation of this cluded herein. Act, and of the Act to which this Act is an amendment, which were located, or selected to be located, under the provisions of an Act entitled "an Act donating lands to the several states and territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts," approved July second, eighteen hundred and sixtytwo, and notice thereof given at the proper land-office.

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An Act Legalizing certain conveyances heretofore made by the
Union Pacific Railroad Company

colleges not in

land on right of

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all conveyances or agreements heretofore Union Pacific made by the Union Pacific Railroad Company, or the Railroad Co. Union Pacific Railway Company, or Union Pacific Rail- Conveyances of road Company, or the Leavenworth, Pawnee and West- way legalized. ern Railroad Company, or the Union Pacific Railway Company, Eastern Division, or the Kansas Pacific Railway Company, or the successors or assigns of any of them, of or concerning land forming a part of the right of way of the Union Pacific Railroad Company granted by the Government by the Act of Congress of July first, eighteen hundred and sixty-two, entitled "An Act to aid the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean and to secure to the Government the use of the same for postal, military, and other purposes "; and also all conveyances or agreements heretofore made by the Union Pacific Railroad Company, or the Union Pacific Railway Company, or the Denver Pacific Railway and Telegraph Company, or the successors or assigns of any of them, of or concern

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