136 RURAL MICHIGAN 



federal government to the state for that purpose, 

 Michigan Avas not forgotten. From 1856 a series of 

 acts of Congress conferred on the State those lands 

 bestowed on the companies which bnilt the railroad 

 lines now ^forming portions of the Chicago and 

 jSTorthwestern and the Duluth, South Shore and At- 

 hmtic railroads in the Upper Peninsula, and the 

 Grand Eapids and Indiana, the Pere Marquette and 

 the Lansing-Mackinac sections of the Michigan Cen- 

 tral railroads in the Lower Peninsula. The grants 

 were of the riglit of way and of alternate sections 

 on both sides of it, and by 1880 had amounted to 

 luore than 3,000,000 acres. 



It thus appears that no inconsiderable fraction 

 of the area of Michigan was freely relinquished by 

 the national government, primarily to the State, but 

 eventually to the private concerns interested in ex- 

 ploiting its natural resources. The construction 

 companies receiving these bonus lands from the State 

 have in turn disposed of them wholly or in part. 

 These grants have, therefore, to a considerable extent 

 become incorporated in the common general mass 

 of farm lands. In the southern peninsula, the Grand 

 Eapids and Indiana, and the Pere Marquette rail- 

 roads have thus wholly disposed of their land grants, 

 save such portions as they may have chosen per- 

 manently to retain. In the Upper Peninsula the 

 Chicago and Northwestern Railway still retains 

 nearly 200,000 acres of its land grant; the Detroit, 

 Mackinac and ]\Iarquette Land Company now pos- 

 sesses some 150,000 acres of the lands originally 



