> History and politics have complicated the pattern of land ownership in the West. To promote western expansion in the nineteenth century, the federal government encouraged the construction of rail lines through the West by granting every other 640-acre parcel along rail corridors to a railroad company. The hope was that the lands remaining with the government would increase in value as the companies built rail lines, which the government would later sell at high prices. The plan was successful further east, but the government struggled to sell the lands in the arid West. The result of this failed venture is the checkerboard pattern of public and private land that now plagues much of the West.
[0] https://www.wyd.uscourts.gov/sites/wyd/files/opinions/22-cv-...