I was digging around the county historical society lately because I thought it would be fun to find where my relatives made a land claim when they arrived in the US. Plat maps, which track ownership, were not updated on a routine basis in the days of primary forests and pioneer wagons. This one was done in 1884, and the next printed update didn’t get published until 1902. Even though the family of five children, all born in Norway, are said to have arrived in 1874, the family name has yet to appear here. It does in 1902.
What you do notice is the number of parcels denoted by St. Paul Minneapolis and Manitoba Ry Co. or St. P. M. & M. Ry Co. These parcels were owned by the railroad built by James J. Hill. The school land is also a major player. There were 168 schools in Leaf Mountain Township. The forty acre plots with no names listed, or US, are the ones open for homesteading. It seems the US government priorities rolled out in that order: transportation, education, and homesteaders to make it all work.
Home Economics 