Checkerboarding refers to a situation where land ownership is intermingled between two or more owners, resulting in a checkerboard pattern. Checkerboarding is prevalent in the

Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the We ...

and

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

because of extensive use in railroad grants for western expansion, although it had its beginnings in the canal land grant era.

Railroad grants

Checkerboarding in the West occurred as a result of railroad

land grant A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...

s where

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

s would be granted every other

section Section, Sectioning or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section sig ...

along a rail corridor. These grants, which typically extended from either side of the track, were a subsidy to the railroads. Unlike per-mile subsidies which encouraged fast but shoddy track-laying, land grants encouraged higher quality work, since the railroads could increase the value of the land by building better track. The government also benefited from the increased value of the remaining public parcels. Railroad land grants split the land surrounding the area where train tracks were to be laid into a checkerboard pattern. The land was already divided into according to the

Public Land Survey System The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 178 ...

; odd-numbered plots were given to private railroad companies, and the federal government kept even-numbered plots. The federal government believed that because the value of land surrounding railroads would increase as much as twofold, granting land to private railroad companies would theoretically pay for itself and also increase the transportation infrastructure throughout the nation. The U.S. government was not able to sell much of the land that it retained because settlers willing to move West were not wealthy. The wealthiest United States citizens of the 19th century remained in the East. The federal government eventually gave away much of this land through the

Homestead Acts The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of t ...

. The first grants were given to the Mobile and Ohio and Illinois Central Railroads in 1850. Additional grants were made under the

Pacific Railway Acts The Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 were a series of acts of Congress that promoted the construction of a "transcontinental railroad" (the Pacific Railroad) in the United States through authorizing the issuance of government bonds and the grants of ...

between 1862 and 1871, when they were stopped because of public opposition. In total, 79 grants were made, totaling , later reduced to .

Native Americans

Checkerboarding also occurred with Native American land grants, where native land was intermingled with non-native land. Many Native American tribes opposed checkerboarding, because it broke up traditionally communal native settlements into many individual plots and allowed non-natives to claim land within those settlements. The

Dawes Act The Dawes Act of 1887 (also known as the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887) regulated land rights on tribal territories within the United States. Named after Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts, it authorized the Pres ...

of 1887 created the most Native American checkerboarding. The act was intended to bolster self-sufficiency and systematically fracture native cultures, giving each individual between . Native Americans were also negatively affected by federal government checkerboarding policies because railroad land grants were not prevented from running through land previously occupied by Native American tribes. This act of unrightful land transfer from the hands of Native Americans to private railroad companies and homestead grantees resulted in conflicts on more than one occasion. One notable location of conflict is the Chambers Checkerboard – a region occupied by Navajo people before railroad companies were granted the land to construct the

transcontinental railroad A transcontinental railroad or transcontinental railway is contiguous railroad trackage, that crosses a continental land mass and has terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single ...

. Tension grew between the Navajo tribe and the settlers of the region because of unexplained deaths, which each party blamed on the other. These tensions led to further violence after a white settler was suspected for murdering a Navajo youth without rightful punishment.

Forest management

Checkerboarding can create problems for access and ecological management. It is one of the major causes of

inholding An inholding is privately owned land inside the boundary of a national park, national forest, state park, or similar publicly owned, protected area. In-holdings result from private ownership of lands predating the designation of the park or fores ...

s within the boundaries of national forests. As is the case in northwestern

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

, checkerboarding has resulted in issues with managing national forest land. Checkerboarding was previously applied to these areas during the period of western expansion, and they are now commercial forest land. Conflicting policies establishing the rights of the private owners of this land have caused some difficulties in the local hardwood timber production economy. While relieving this land from its checkerboard ownership structure could benefit the timber production economy of the region, checkerboards can allow government to extend good forestry practices over intermingled private lands, by demonstration or applying pressure via economy of scale or the right of access.

Land access

Checkerboarding may make public land inaccessible when it is surrounded by privately owned land. In 2021, hunters in Wyoming were charged with trespassing on private land they never actually set foot on when they crossed between two parcels of public land at the corner where they touched. Landowners allege their airspace was violated. A jury found the hunters not guilty, but a civil lawsuit was also filed by the landowners. Corner crossing is not explicitly legal or illegal in any state, but legal opinions and enforcement differ by state.

Railroad grants

Native Americans

Forest management

Land access

See also

References

Further reading