The same disposition was made of the fund arising from the sale of the 500,000 acres to which the state was entitled on admission, by the act of September 4, 1841. When the state was organized, the framers of the constitution offered to take this grant in addition to the common-school lands, instead of for public improvements ; but on accepting the Oregon constitution, congress said nothing concerning this method of appropriating the lands, from which it was doubtful whether the law of congress or the law of the state should govern in this case. But as the lands belonged absolutely to the state, it was finally decided to devote them to school purposes.
By 1885 half of the 500,000-acre grant was sold, and the remainder, most of which was in eastern Oregon, was, some time previous, offered at two dollars an acre. From this, and the sale of the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections, the five-per-cent fund, money accruing from escheats, forfeitures, and all other sources provided by law, the school fund amounted in 1881 to about $600,000, which was loaned on real estate security at ten per cent per annum. The number of acres actually appropriated by congress for common schools amounted to 3, 250, 000, of which about 500,000 had been sold, the minimum price being $1.25 an acre.[1]
The legislature of 1868 passed an act creating a
board of commissioners for the location of the 90,000
acres appropriated by congress for agricultural colleges, and to establish such a college. By this act a
school already existing at the town of Corvallis was
adopted as the Agricultural College, in which students
sent under the provision of the act should receive a
- ↑ Portland Standard, Jan. 7, 1881. The fund does not seem proportioned to the amount of land. At the lowest price fixed by law, the lands sold must have aggregated 925,000 up to the date just mentioned. Out of this, after taking the cost of the canal and locks at Oregon City, $200,000, there would be a considerable amount to be accounted for more than should be credited to the account of expenses. But the figures are drawn from the best authority obtainable.
