CHAPTER XVII. MILITARY RESERVATIONS UPON THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. HOW RESERVATIONS ARE MADE. The present method of creating a military reservation from the lands of the public domain is as follows: The commanding officer of a military department recommends the establishment of a reservation with certain boundaries; the Secretary of War refers the papers to the Interior Department to know whether any objection exists to the declaration of the reserve by the President. If no objection is known to the General Land Office and it is so reported, the reservation is declared by the President upon application of the Secretary of War for that purpose, and the papers are sent to the General Land Office, through the Secretary of the Interior, for annotation upon the proper records. If upon surveyed land the United States land officers are at once instructed to withhold the same from disposal and respect the reservation. If upon unsurveyed land the United States surveyor-general is furnished with a full description of the tract and is instructed to close the lines of public surveys upon the outboundaries of the reserve; the United States land officers are also instructed not to receive any filing, of any kind for the reserved lands. HOW RESTORED TO PUBLIC DOMAIN. There is at present no authority for restoring military reservations to the public domain, in view of the act of Congress approved June 12, 1858 (11 Stats., p. 336), which interdicts the sale of any lands in a reservation without a special act of Congress, and provides that such lands shall not be subject to the pre-emption or homestead laws, except in Florida, where under the act of Congress approved August 18, 1856 (11 Stat., p. 87), the Secretary of War may relinquish, in writing, to the Secretary of the Interior any reservation not needed, and it may be disposed of as are other public lands. The act of July 2, 1864, provides for the sale by the Commissioner of the General Land Office of reservations of public lands, which shall be brought into market under existing laws. The minimum price fixed is $1.25 per acre. Such lands cannot be sold for less than this sum. The act of March 3, 1819, made it the duty of the War Department to sell abandoned military sites and bodies of land once reserved for military purposes. The present method of unmaking a military reservation, or throwing the lands therein into the market for sale, is usually through and by an act of Congress specially for each reservation, or an act providing for the sale of one or more of them. Congress acts upon information received from the War Department as to reservations being no longer necessary for military purposes. These acts of Congress usually contain (see act of February 24, 1871, for illustration) a provision for appointment of appraisers to value the land, and advertising and selling at not less than the appraised value nor at less than $1.25 per acre. The Secretary of War after the act is passed transfers the control of the lands to the Secretary of the Interior, who proceeds as the law directs. The theory of the appraisal before sale of these lands is that time enhances their value by increase of population surrounding them, as the fort or post on the frontier or in the west is usually the nucleus of a settlement, which grows into a town or city. The following list shows that the total number of military reservations in land States and Territories is 179, containing 2,920,580.68 acres of land, as follows: Military reservations in public-land States and Territories, July 1, 1880. Timber reserve for Fort Whipple.... Fort Yuma, mostly in California, small part in Arizona. Area of military reservations in Arizona not counting Camp Thomas, which is mostly comprised in Camp Goodwin Reservation... 7, 421. 14 3,278.08 23, 040.00 2,031.70 42, 341.00 23, 040.00 6, 486. 81 24,750. 15 49, 920.00 10,487.00 12, 293. 79 1,730.00 720.00 197, 052.67 14.81 260.96 275.77 344.90 3, 201. 45 1,562.00 2,560.00 2.00 Camp Cady Fort Crook.. Point San José (less the area relinquished to city and county of San 130.24 Peninsula Island, area not known. Fort Reading. 3,962.90 Point Loma, area not known. San Solito, Bay Point, area not known. Three Brothers, Three Sisters, and Marin Islands at San Pablo Bay entrance, area not known. Yerba Buena Island, area not known. Fort Yuma 5,214.30 Total in California as far as the areas are known.... 21, 461.69 Total area in Dakota, not including Fort Abraham Lincoln, but in- Florida (16 reservations): North end of Amelia Island Fort McRee, area not known. Battard Island and adjacent lands, area not known. Fort Brooke. Cedar Keys..... Islands in Charlotte Harbor... Fort Barrancas, area not known Neck of land at Saint Andrew's Sound, area not known. Fort Marion and blocks in Saint Augustine and land at Matanzas At Saint George's Sound, lands mostly disposed of, they constituting a part of what is known as "Forbes's Purchase." Saint Joseph's Bay, Point Saint Joseph Saint Mark's At Santa Rosa Sound.. Key West Shoals, area not known. Total area of reservations in Florida, as far as known. Idaho (5 reservations): 3 851.21 305.75 5,954. 20 13, 045. 13 Louisiana (7 reservations): Battery Bienvenue, area not known. Acres. Baton Rouge... On the coast of the Gulf of Mexico quite a number of reserved tracts, 44. 17 Island in Missouri River, township 50 north, range 33 west.. 740.97 556. 12 1,341.26 9, 199. 43 148.35 9,347.78 7.32 54.70 2.400.00 Total in New Mexico, not including Fort Butler, never declared.. 218, 086.51 Three tracts on west side of narrows of Puget Sound (each 640). Total area reserved in Washington Territory, including some lands Wisconsin (1 reservation): Stone Quarry Reservation in township 28 north, range 25 east. 1,046. 10 640.00 640,00 640,00 1,920. 00 640.00 25, 446.00 |