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The Oregon and California Railroad Revested Lands (commonly known as O&C Lands), are approximately of land located in eighteen counties of western Oregon. Originally granted to the Oregon & California Railroad to build a railroad between Portland, Oregon and San Francisco, California, the land was reconveyed to the United States government by act of Congress in 1916 and is currently managed by the United States Bureau of Land Management. Since 1916, the 18 counties where the O&C lands are located have received payments from the United States government as compensation for the loss of timber and tax revenue, beginning as a 50% share of timber revenue on those lands but changing over the years as timber production decreased. The governments of several of the counties have come to depend upon the O&C land revenue as an important source of income for schools and county services. The most recent source of income from the lands, an extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000, was last renewed in 2013 but at vastly reduced spending levels, leaving some counties scrambling to find new sources of funding. In late 2013, the United States House of Representatives was considering a bill that would resume the funding and increase timber harvests to provide additional income to the counties. ==Origin== As part of the U.S. government's desire to foster settlement and economic development in the western states, in July 1866, Congress passed the Oregon and California Railroad Act. This act made of land available for any company that built a railroad from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco. The land was to be distributed by the state of Oregon in land grants for each mile of track completed.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=O&C Sustained Yield Act: the Law, the Land, the Legacy )〕 Two companies, both of which named themselves the Oregon Central Railroad, began a competition to build the railroad, one on the west side of the Willamette River and one on the east side. The two lines would eventually merge and reorganize as the Oregon and California Railroad.〔 In 1869, Congress changed how the grants were to be distributed, requiring the railroads to sell land along the line to settlers in parcels at $2.50 per acre.〔 The land was distributed in a checkerboard pattern, with sections laid out for on either side of the rail corridor with the government retaining the alternate sections for future growth.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=History of Oregon BLM )〕 By 1872, the railroad had extended from Portland to Roseburg.〔 Along the way, it created growth in Willamette Valley towns such as Canby, Aurora, and Harrisburg, which emerged as freight and passenger stations, and provided a commercial lifeline to the part of the river valley above Harrisburg where steamships were rarely able to travel.〔 As the railroad made its way into the Umpqua Valley, new townsites such as Drain, Oakland, and Yoncalla were laid out.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Oregon and California Railroad Revested Lands」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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