Approximately 70% of the continuously flat surface of the Harper Dry Lake itself is owned by the BLM, part of the federal government. The remaining 30% is in private hands. One of the largest plots owned by one entity is Section 25, a full square mile (640 acres) owned by Southern Pacific Properties, a real estate arm of the former Santa Fe Railroad. This is due to the legacy of the federal policy from the 1800s of endowing the construction of the railroads in the west by giving the companies every other square mile section for twenty miles on either side of the right of way. Since that time, the railroad companies that spanned the west have sold or transferred much of their land. This square mile section, however, is considered undevelopable by most measures, as it is in the middle of a dry lake that occasionally is too muddy to cross.