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>Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on July 1, 1862, the 1862 Act authorized extensive land grants[2] in the Western United States and the issuance of 30-year government bonds (at 6 percent) to the Union Pacific Railroad and Central Pacific Railroad (later the Southern Pacific Railroad) companies in order to construct a continuous transcontinental railroad
>The method of apportioning these additional land grants was specified in the Act as being in the form of "five alternate sections per mile on each side of said railroad, on the line thereof, and within the limits of ten miles on each side" which thus provided the companies with a total of 6,400 acres (2,600 ha) for each mile of their railroad, resulting in checkerboarding.