Oregon and California Railroad - Revestiture of Lands

Revestiture of Lands

In 1915, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the railroad had been built as promised, so the railroad company should not be forced to completely forfeit the lands, despite having violated the terms of the grant. Congress responded in 1916, with the Chamberlain-Ferris Act. This law put the O&C lands back in U.S. federal government control, and compensated the company at an amount equivalent to what it would have received had it abided by the $2.50 per acre limit. Counties with O&C land also received revenue from timber and land sales to make up for the loss of local and state taxation revenue from the land. The law was modified in 1926 by the Stanfield Act, by the 1937 O&C Act, and most recently, by the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 which has been renewed several times and includes other rural counties in the United States. As timber revenue on the O&C lands has declined over the years, counties have faced financial difficulty as they struggle to fill the revenue gap.