 In payment for the completion of the road , close to 221 @,@ 000 acres ( 89 @,@ 000 ha ) were awarded by the federal government to the corporation , including some 174 @,@ 000 acres ( 70 @,@ 000 ha ) to Dr James Ayer of Lowell , Massachusetts , for his investments in the company . Most of the remaining land grants went to the company behind the Portage Lake Canal near Houghton and Hancock . Ayer 's holdings were controlled by the trustees of his estate after his death in July 1878 . A few thousand acres were sold over time , and the trustees benefitted from the sale of timber and the mineral rights . The profits had been exhausted by 1921 , and the remaining tracts were sold to a lumberman from Grand Rapids for $ 2 @.@ 3 million ( equivalent to $ 187 million in 2015 ) . 
