Cedar Rapids & Missouri River Railroad v. Herring

Citations

• 110 U.S. 27
• 3 S. Ct. 485
• 28 L. Ed. 56
• 1884 U.S. LEXIS 1650

Syllabus

<p>Land Grants — Railroads—Statutes.</p> <p>1. It has been the invariable policy of Congress to measure the amount of public lands granted to a land-grant railroad by the length of the road as actually constructed, and not by its length as originally located ; and there is nothing in the statutes of Congress or of the State of Iowa' applicable to the grant of public lands in favor of the plaintiffs in error which indicates a different purpose, or which warrants the claim that the number .of sections which they are entitled .to- receive is to be esti-matejd by the standard of the original location of .the road.</p> <p>2. When Congress grants to a State for a railroad company every alternate section of land designated by odd numbers within a given distance from the line of the róad, and directs the Secretary of the Interior, when\\a map shall be filed in that department, showing the location of the road, to reserve the sections, and further provides that in case it is found that the United States had disposed of any of these odd sections, or rights at* , tachpd to them’ by pre-emption or otherwise, the grantee may select other alternate odd sections within another and greater distance from that line, the filing of the map cuts off the right of entry, of the odd sections within the first named distance ; but it confers no rights to specified tracts within the secondary or indemnity tract, until the grantee’s right of selection has been exercised ; and that right cannot be . exercised until the entire road has been completed.</p> <p>3. The act of June 3d, 1864, § 4, 13 Stat. 96, 97, construed.</p>