as may from time to time be enacted and provided
for by the General Assembly of the State of Iowa," and that if the
company should neglect to comply with any of the requirements of the
act, it should forfeit to the State all its franchises and corporate
rights acquired by or under the laws of the State, and all lands granted
to aid in the construction of its road. The line was completed to
Council Bluffs in June, 1869.

The lands in aid of the construction of a railroad running across the
State, as nearly as practicable along the forty-second parallel, were
granted by the General Assembly to the Iowa Central Air Line on the 14th
of July, 1856, but as this company failed to fulfill the conditions of
its grant, it was, on the 17th of March, 1860, transferred to the Cedar
Rapids and Missouri River Railroad Company. This company completed the
road to Marshalltown in 1862, to Nevada in 1864, to Boone in 1865, and
to Council Bluffs in the fall of 1867.

The Burlington and Missouri River road reached the Missouri River but a
few months later. Ten years after this company had received its grant,
its line had only been completed as far as Albia, in Monroe County. In
1867 the road was built little more than half across the State. But it
managed not to be far behind its two rivals on the north in reaching the
Missouri River.

At first sight it might seem as if these companies had all at once
become awake to their obligations. When it is remembered, however, that
in 1869 the junction of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads
was effected, and thus a continuous line across the continent formed,
the conclusion lies near that the haste with which the three Iowa
land-grant roads were completed was simply the result of a strife for
the large amount of through business which the completion of the Pacific
route promised to bring to them.

No such inducement existed for the Dubuque and Sioux City Company, and
twelve years after receiving its grant it had not yet built half of its
line. In his message to the Twelfth General Assembly, delivered January
14, 1868, Governor Stone said: "Under the provisions of the act adopted
by the General Assembly, at its extra session (in July, 1856), this (the
Dubuque and Sioux City) company became the beneficiary of the grant
designed to secure the construction of a railroad leading from Dubuque
to Sioux City, and this valuable donation was accepted from the State,
with all the terms and cond