Interesting history, Coke. Another tactic the RRs would use is to force a situation whereby the RR would establish a station just a tantalizing distance out of town, particularly where an established town refused to knuckle under to the RR's extortionist demands. What would happen is that the town would disappear as everyone moved to where the station was. And of course the RR owned all of the land around the station, so the newcomers had to buy property from guess who? The RR of course.
A case in point is Durango. The original city was a few miles north and was called Animas City. When the D&RGW blew in, they established their terminal, shops, etc. where Durango is today. And of course Animas City vaporized as everyone moved to Durango, and of course had to buy property from the D&RGW.
A very common tactic. Many existing towns today are there because of the RRs. A case in point is Cheyenne, WY which was a UP town from the very beginning. But there the town was built because the RR established extensive terminal facilities. Originally there wasn't a town near there at all.
These practices were not so common in the East where the new RR's were dealing with a more generally established population. Although I haven't researched the question, I would suspect that in the case of the land grant railroads, many existing towns today got their start on RR land, and not the alternating sections of public land in between.
I have a book (which is packed away at the moment) entitled "The Selling of the Northern Pacific" which chronicles the history of the NP, which was one of the larger recepients of land grants. I can't remember the author's name, but I do remember that the book was his Master's Thesis. I would speculate that the NP experience didn't differ markedly from that of the other big western roads.
CJ
