Short answers, pulled from the story.
President Abraham Lincoln signed the reconfigured Morrill Act into law on the 2nd of July 1862. This legislation provided each state land scrip worth one hundred sixty acres per senator and representative to fund colleges.
Jonathan Baldwin Turner, an agriculturist and professor at Illinois College, drafted the resolution adopted by the Illinois Legislature in 1853. His plan offered equal grants to each state regardless of population size but faced opposition from Southern legislators before the Civil War.
Kansas State University emerged as the first actual institution created under the Act in 1863. Iowa became the first state to accept terms on the 12th of September 1862, but Kansas State University was the first physical school established.
The second Morrill Act required states to demonstrate race was not an admissions criterion or designate separate institutions for African Americans. Southern states chose the latter option creating segregated educational systems that facilitated access while maintaining racial separation.
The Equity in Educational Land-Grant Status Act added tribal colleges to the land-grant system in 1994. There were thirty-five 1994 land-grant schools as of 2023, receiving Congressional apportionments rather than direct land grants.