The Railroad Checkerboard Lands in Nevada: A Brief History

The first legislation to authorize and promote construction of a transcontinental railroad was introduced in the U.S. Congress in 1854. The bill was a tangible expression of "Manifest Destiny" - the popular concept that the United States would expand inevitably westward across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. Although the bill had insufficient support to pass at that time, Congress passed a similar transcontinental railroad bill eight years later. President Abraham Lincoln signed it into law on 1 July 1862.

But in 1862, the Civil War was raging, and the consequent demands for men and materials delayed implementation of the transcontinental railroad. In 1864, Congress amended the act to provide greater incentive for building this strategically important railway. As amended, the act granted vast amounts of land to the two railroad companies involved in the construction: the Union Pacific Railroad Company, and the Central Pacific Railroad Company. In the newly created state of Nevada, the land grant was comprised of all the odd numbered township sections (approximately 640 acres each) in a 40-mile wide swath along the Central Pacific right-of-way, extending 20 miles out on each side of the railway route. With the government retaining the even numbered sections as public land, and the Central Pacific owning the odd numbered sections, all subsequent land status maps of northern Nevada show a distinctive checkerboard pattern of land ownership along the railroad route.

Within Nevada, the land grant amounted to 5,068,603.65 acres. Central Pacific was expected to sell this land in order to finance construction of the railroad, and as the Central Pacific tracks were progressing eastward through California, the first auction was convened in the nascent town of Reno, Nevada, on 9 May 1868. Lots in the new townsite sold reasonably well, with a few lots selling for as much as $1,000 each, paid in gold coin. Auctions of townsite lots in the Nevada railroad towns of (from west to east) Wadsworth, Lovelock, Winnemucca, Argenta, Carlin, Elko, and Wells, as well as rangeland sales to ranchers in Elko County and Humboldt County, were also lucrative. But elsewhere in Nevada, Central Pacifica's land sales were less successful. Much of the checkerboard lands in Nevada were unsold in 1887, when the Southern Pacific Railroad Company acquired Central Pacific and its assets.

The Southern Pacific Railroad Company owned and managed the Nevada checkerboard lands for over 100 years, with sales and leases to provide revenue. Southern Pacific eventually merged with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company in 1983 to form the Santa Fe Southern Pacific Company (renamed Santa Fe Pacific Corporation in 1989). Twelve years later, in October 1995, this company sold all that remained of the original 5,068,603.65 acres of Nevada checkerboard lands to Nevada Land and Resource Company: 1,377,583 acres of pristine high-desert land, with many parcels adjacent to Interstate Highway 80.