No such inducement existed for the Dubuque and Sioux City Company, and twelve years after receiving its grant it had not yet built half of its line. In his message to the Twelfth General Assembly, delivered January 14, 1868, Governor Stone said: "Under the provisions of the act adopted by the General Assembly, at its extra session (in July, 1856), this (the Dubuque and Sioux City) company became the beneficiary of the grant designed to secure the construction of a railroad leading from Dubuque to Sioux City, and this valuable donation was accepted from the State, with all the terms and conditions imposed. A large portion of this grant has already been absorbed by the company, in various ways, by pretended sales and incumbrances. This road has been constructed to Iowa Falls, a distance of 143 miles from Dubuque, but I am unable to discover any reliable evidence of earnest intention on the part of this company to construct the line to its terminal point on the Missouri River." The Governor further recommended that the General Assembly pass an act resuming the control over these lands. At about the same time an agreement was effected between the Iowa Falls and Sioux City Railroad Company (which was organized in the fall of 1867) and the Dubuque and Sioux City Railroad Company, by which the latter transferred to the former its land grant for the unfinished portion of the Dubuque and Sioux City road. This agreement was confirmed by the General Assembly, through an act approved April 7, 1868. The road was completed to Fort Dodge in August, 1869, and to Sioux City a year or two later. The entire line was then leased to the Illinois Central. The land grant to this line of road embraced over 1,000,000 acres of the finest lands of the State. We can appreciate the magnitude of this donation when we consider that, had these lands been sold at only $8 per acre, the proceeds would have paid the whole expense of building and equipping the road from Dubuque to Sioux City. The lands granted to the C., R. I. & P. R. R. were sold at an average price of over $8 per acre, and those of the B. & M. at over $12 per acre.