On Jul. 2, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Morrill Act, or the Land Grant Colleges Act which provided grants of land to states to finance the establishment of colleges specializing in ‘agriculture and the mechanic arts.’

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 Act, sponsored by Vermont Congressman Justin Smith Morrill, expropriated more than 10 million acres of land from 245 tribal nations and divided it into roughly 80,000 parcels for redistribution.

In 1855, the state of Michigan passed legislation that established the first agriculture college in the nation. The Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, now known as Michigan State University, served as a model for the Morrill Act.