On Sept. 12, 1862, Iowa became the first State in the Nation to accept the terms and conditions of the Morrill Act creating the land-grant system of colleges. The Act was sponsored by Vermont Congressman Justin Smith Morrill.

In 1856, the Iowa General Assembly enacted legislation to establish the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, now Iowa State University, was officially established on March 22, 1858. The first graduating class of 1872 consisted of 24 men and two women.

President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Morrill Act, or the Land Grant Colleges Act on July 2, 1862, Morrill, the major proponent of the act, intended these colleges “to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.”

In order to fund these colleges, the act specified that each state receive 30,000 acres of federal land for every member of Congress in order to lease and eventually sell. The proceeds went to funding the creation of the college, creating a curriculum, and general campus maintenance.

The 10 million acres of federal land to be sold was expropriated more from 245 tribal nations and divided into roughly 80,000 parcels for redistribution.