Land Grants: Boons or Boondoggles?

Posted on by February 7, 2023
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The recent posts about the Northern Pacific land grant and Red River Valley lands provides a good segue to some research I’ve been doing about a land grant in Oregon. This has no passenger train content and is only peripherally related to railroads, but the subject interests me because some of the land grant in question is just a half mile from my home and because one of the major players in the later part of the story was Great Northern Railway president Louis Hill.

This 1939 report from the Department of the Interior lists 105 railroad, wagon road, canal, and river improvement land grants made by Congress in the 19th century and how many acres various transportation companies ended up receiving for those grants. A few of the grants, including the massive Northern Pacific grant, were still open with the grantees hoping to get several million more acres. Click image to download a 4.7-MB PDF of the report.

Today I’m going to introduce the topic by describing the history of federal land grants. These land grants have been praised for playing a key role in the development of the nation and derided for being a huge giveaway to corporate interests, but I’ll show that neither of these are really true. Posts tomorrow and the next day will go into the history of the Oregon land grant, followed by two more posts on what happened to the land in that grant. After that I’ll get back to railroad memorabilia. Continue reading →

Das Red River Thal

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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It’s 1892, and the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway has changed its name to the Great Northern, signifying a completely different set of ambitions. But James J. Hill has not forgotten the importance of the Red River Valley, which grew a large share of the nation’s wheat crop, much of which was carried by Manitoba/Great Northern trains to Minneapolis and Duluth. This brochure is an effort to attract settlers to some of the still-unclaimed lands in the valley.

Click image to download a 13.2-MB PDF of this brochure, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

The settlers it is trying to attract are from Germany, which means the brochure is nearly all in German. Moreover, it is in blackletter, the ornate and hard-to-read (for someone used to today’s Roman type) typeface that was commonly used in the Germanic countries before World War II. (Germany switched to Roman in 1941 because Hitler thought blackletter had been influenced by Jews.) Continue reading →

NP’s Land Grant in Washington

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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To promote construction of a northern railway, Congress in 1864 offered the most generous land grant in U.S. history: roughly 44 million acres consisting of every other square mile of land within 20 miles on either side of the rail line in Minnesota and within 40 miles on either side between Minnesota and Puget Sound. Moreover, if some of the lands had already been claimed (such as lands within an Indian reservation), NP was allowed to choose any other lands it wanted within 50 miles of the rail line.

Click image to download a 13.2-MB PDF of this brochure, which is from the David Rumsey map collection.

This was a far more generous land grant than for any other railroad. The first railroad land grants gave every other square mile of land within six miles of the railroad to the Illinois Central and Gulf, Mobile & Ohio between Chicago and New Orleans. The other transcontinental railroads (Union Pacific, Central Pacific, Southern Pacific, and Santa Fe predecessor Atlantic & Pacific) received every other square mile within 20 miles of the lines. Continue reading →

Seaboard Coast Line December 1970 Timetable

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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“Our trains go to Florida, Florida and Florida” says an ad in this timetable, which was published three years after Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard merged and four months before Amtrak would take over passenger trains to Florida. Indeed, the timetable lists six daily trains between New York and Florida, three others between Florida and other cities, and only one non-Florida train.

Click image to download a 12.0-MB PDF of this timetable from the Touchton Map Library.

The winter-only Florida Special was still running, commencing December 18. It was no longer all-Pullman, but still had a “recreation car” of sorts. The “attractive hostesses” working in that car now modeled swimsuits and other fashions for the tourists heading to Florida. Continue reading →

Atlantic Coast Line 1966 Timetable

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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Like the Seaboard, Atlantic Coast Line still had a lot of Florida trains in the 1960s. At the top of the list was the New York-Naples/Miami Champion, ACL’s answer to Seaboard’s Silver Meteor. In addition, there was the New York-St. Petersburg Gulf Coast Special and the Washington-Jacksonville Everglades.

Click image to download a 12.3-MB PDF of this timetable from the Touchton Map Library.

Trains from the Midwest were timed to meet the Champion or Gulf Coast Special in Jacksonville, sending through cars down the West or East coasts. The Chicago-Miami/Naples City of Miami went over Illinois Central and Central of Georgia tracks to Albany, Georgia and met the Champion in Jacksonville. Similarly, the Chicago-Miami/Naples South Wind went over Pennsylvania and Louisville & Nashville tracks to Montgomery, Alabama and also met the Champion in Jacksonville. The Southern Railway’s Dixie Flyer went from Cincinnati to Atlanta and then went on ACL tracks to Jacksonville, where it met the Champion. Finally, the Seminole followed the same routing as the City of Miami but met the Gulf Coast Special in Jacksonville. Continue reading →

Seaboard 1961 Condensed Timetable

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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In 1961, passenger service was declining on many railroads, but Seaboard still offered four trains a day between New York and Florida. The Silver Meteor went to Miami and St. Petersburg, the Silver Star and Palmland went primarily to Miami and the Sunland went primarily to Tampa. In addition, the Gulf Wind went from New Orleans to Jacksonville (partly over Louisville & Nashville lines) and the Tidewater connected Norfolk with Jacksonville.

Click image to download a 7.0-MB PDF of this timetable from the Touchton Map Library.

Unnamed trains included the New York-Birmingham Silver Comet, a daily train between St. Petersburg and Miami, and several others. Coach fares between New York and Miami were up to $44, which is still about $300 in today’s money.


Seaboard’s Silver Meteors pass one another somewhere in Florida. Click image to download a 1.5-MB PDF of this 1949 postcard.

By 1961, of course, all of the named trains were streamlined. As previously noted here, Seaboard was the first to streamline its Florida trains in 1939. The above postcard is dated 1949. If the 1949 timetable was similar to the one for 1961, the trains are passing one another somewhere around Winter Haven, Florida.

The Florida East Coast in 1947

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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This booklet is 12 pages longer than yesterday’s, and most of it is spent lauding the virtues of tropical beaches, warm ocean waters, and fabulous resorts. The booklet includes several photos of streamlined trains but doesn’t list any names of trains. One photo is of the Dixie Flagler, which went from Chicago to Miami via the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, Louisville & Nashville, and Atlantic Coast Line, but we only know that because of the tailsign in the photo. (In fact, all of the exterior train photos are probably of this train.)

Click image to download a 23.3-MB PDF of this 44-page booklet from the Touchton Map Library.

The recreation car with its hostess and orchestra has been replaced by a tavern-lounge car. Other interior photos show the diner and people playing bridge at a table in one of the coaches. Continue reading →

The Florida East Coast in 1937

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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The stunning cover of this booklet (which was actually on the back cover, as was yesterday’s and in fact the three booklets before that) belies the fact that this is merely an update of yesterday’s booklet. However, it has been largely rewritten, the maps have been redrawn (though in the same style), and many of the photos are new.

Click image to download a 17.5-MB PDF of this 32-page booklet from the Touchton Map Library.

An interior photo of the recreation car shows people sitting on some flimsy-looking folding chairs around a card table playing bridge while in the background the “orchestra” plays music. The orchestra seems to consist of a guitar, a steel guitar, and a ukulele. Continue reading →

The Florida East Coast in 1936

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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Until the Seaboard reached West Palm Beach and Miami, the Florida East Coast was the only railroad to serve that side of the state. After the Seaboard’s invasion, the FEC advertised that it was “the only double-track route through Florida” (emphasis added). Unlike the Seaboard’s trains, the FEC required out-of-state travelers to change trains in Jacksonville, but this booklet dismisses this as “a simple matter.”

Click image to download an 18.1-MB PDF of this 32-page booklet from the Touchton Map Library.

The booklet mentions three trains: the year-round Havana Special, the December-to-May Miamian, and the January-April Florida Special. The latter train had an on-board hostess, a special recreation car, and an orchestra! (From the photos, the “orchestra” consisted of some guitar players and an accordionist and was possibly enjoyed by dancers in the recreation car.) Continue reading →

The Southland and Flamingo

Posted on by December 23, 2022
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No matter which route you took from New York City to Florida, you would ride on the Pennsylvania as far as Washington, DC. The Pennsylvania also competed with the Southern in Midwest-Florida service.

Click image to download a 6.4-MB PDF of this 12-page booklet from the Touchton Map Library.

The Flamingo connected Chicago with Florida via the PRR from Chicago to Cincinnati, the Louisville & Nashville to Albany, Georgia, the Atlantic Coast Line from there to Jacksonville. The train then continued to Fort Meyers four days a week and Miami (via the Florida East Coast) the other three. There were also through cars from Jacksonville to Orlando, St. Petersburg, and Sarasota. Continue reading →