Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 3.djvu/52

 seventy-five miles. Its gross earnings for 1868 were $127,000. A land grant was obtained by this road in Nebraska.

The Council Bluffs and St. Joseph Railroad was completed to the south line of the State, a distance of fifty-two miles. Its gross earnings for the year were $153,854. It had no land grant.

The Council Falls and Minnesota Railroad was extended north from Cedar Falls a distance of forty-two miles and had no land grant.

The Keokuk and Saint Paul Railway had built twenty-five miles of road but no land grant.

It will be seen from these reports that Iowa had, on the 1st of January, 1869, 1,473 miles of railroad completed and in operation. The entire amount of public lands granted to the roads to aid in their construction was 3,127,785 acres.

During the year 1868 there was entered at the United States Land Office in the Sioux City District 255,993 acres of public lands. Of these entries 31,738 acres were cash sales; 78,240 acres were taken with Agricultural College scrip, 9,666 acres with military land warrants and 80,700 acres as homesteads. It was estimated at the end of the year 1868 that but one-third of the tillable land in the State had been brought under cultivation. The auditor of the State reported that during the two years from January, 1866, to the close of 1868, there had been added to the material wealth of the State over $38,000,000. The total value of the real and personal property in 1869 shown by the Auditor's report was $294,532,199.

A convention was held at Dubuque on the 11th of November, 1869, composed of prominent men of Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois to promote water navigation between the great lakes and the Mississippi River. Resolutions were unanimously adopted urging Congress to make an appropriation to aid the improvement of the navigation of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers and the Michigan Canal.

The Republican State Convention met at Des Moines