Mitchell County Railroad Reservations Map
General Land Office

On this map of railroad reservations, every other 640-acre section, here colored yellow, was set aside to support education.

Other lands were appropriated to finance a public school system. Eventually, more land was appropriated for the public schools than for any other purpose. By 1876 the total amounted to some 42.5 million acres.

Some two million acres were granted to the University of Texas, but the income from grazing leases amounted only to $40,000 per year by the turn of the century. In May of 1923, a wildcatter drilling on university lands with a rig named Santa Rita--after the patroness of the impossible--struck oil, giving the University of Texas system one of the largest endowments in the country. A share of the money was later diverted to Texas A & M University.