Nostalgia & History > Milwaukee Road Giving Away Land Grant Land ~1900

This photograph and caption are from the Minnesota Historical Society's Online Collection.

Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company exhibit building, sign offers free government land for settlers.
Format: postcard
Content: Approximately 1900
ID Number: E200 r87

I bent the photo around so the sign can almost be read. The caption or the sign does not say where this building was or where the land is except it is west of the Missouri River. The decoration of this "exhibit" building is surprising. What is it made of? What was exhibited? The building in the back looks like it could be a depot.

Enjoy,
Marty Bernard

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I would say that along the roof, building corner and around the door are full ears of corn. Perhaps the words and X are slices of the ear?
I have seen railroad photos of the era that showed all the bounty possible from the new land. Not to many made a go of it on the first try.
Roger Beckett

300 acres in Montana


I would have liked to have seen Montana

I didn't catch it the first time, but the land will be adjacent to the Chicago Milwaukee and Puget Sound Railroad

A half section in good climate, as long as 15' of snow at -40 is your idea of a good climate.

A common tactic for the transcontinentals was to sit on their land grant acreage without "patenting" it. By not officially taking title to the land, the railroads did not have to pay taxes on them, and some land grant land remained in this limbo status for decades. Sometimes the land was so worthless, that they gave it away as "government" land (which it technically still was - it was stolen fair and square from the Indians) in the hopes of populating it. Don't know if was the case here, however.

-E.O.

The CM&PS was not a land grant railroad, neither was the GN. Those roads did not have any government land to give away but the government was giving theirs away under the homestead acts.

Posted from Windows Phone OS 7

TipsyMcStagger Wrote:
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> 300 acres in Montana
>
>
> I would have liked to have seen Montana

I got it... great movie!