On Thursday, September 11, 1997 at 2:00:00 AM UTC-5, Kent McMillan wrote:
> Rather than guessing, I should have pulled out Bowden’s monograph (J.J.
> Bowden, Surveying The Texas and Pacific Land Grant West of the Pecos River,
> Texas Western Press, The University of Texas at El Paso, 1975).
> May 2, 1873 the Texas Legislature authorized the Texas and Pacific Railway
> Company to receive twenty alternate sections of land for every mile of main
> or branch track completed. The legislation provided for the reservation of an
> 80 mile wide strip of land West of the 100th meridian of longitude (the
> meridian boundary between Texas and what is presently Oklahoma) within which
> the T & P Rwy Company would have priority for locating their land certificates
> until January 1, 1880.
> The T & P Rwy Company was to survey at their own cost both the lands granted
> to them and the alternate sections reserved by the State. The T & P Rwy
> Company plan for the 80 mile reservation does not have duplicate block and
> township numbers in the portion West of the Pecos River, and probably does
> not in the part East of the Pecos either.
> Palo Pinto County is not within either reservation, however. Moreover, it was
> in a different Land District. The lands of Palo Pinto County fell in Milam
> and Robertson Land Districts. What is now Reagan County was in Bexar Land
> District.

Do you suppose one could find a legal description for a specific segment of the T&P Railway (i.e. a portion traversing a Section)?

Thanks for any help.