I'm glad the court case came down on the reasonable side that you can't effectively by half the land (as you buy more and more land of course) to gain control of the entire enclosed area which is clearly what all those land owners thought they could achieve. I wonder if they're going to actually buy the enclosed areas now?
Reminds me of the battle for beach access in California
Sounds like we aren't taxing the land hard enough
This makes me wonder when the government's plan changed. If the "checkerboard" was meant to hold land until it rose in value and then sell it, why are so many of those parcels public today?
My understanding from the episode is that the plan was never for the public lands to grow in value. The private lands were given away or sold as incentives, and the owners could choose to capitalize off them immediately (e.g. as soon as the railroad reached nearby) or hold onto them for profit.