Volume 17 , Issue 42

1887 - No Mans Land

It was in the Indian Journal, dated 2 March 1997, Wednesday, out of Muskogee, Oklahoma, page 2: "No Mans Land," that we found this mention of the text of the Bill extending the laws of the United States over the strip of land in the Oklahoma panhandle.

Found on Newspapers.com

Washington, Feb. 26 (1887) - The following is the full text of the House bill to open up No Man's Land to settlement as it was amended in the Senate and passed by that body:

That the laws of the United States, except those providing for pre-emption, timber culture and desert land entries of the public lands, are hereby extended over the unorganized territory south of the States of Kansas and Colorado, and between the Indian Territory and the Territory of New Mexico, and north of Texas, known as the public land strip, and that for the purpose of the execution said laws, all that portion of the State of Kansas lying south of the 6th standard parallel, south and west of the line between ranges 30 and 81 west of the 6th principal meridian, and the tract of unorganized territory known as the public land strip aforesaid, be and are hereby constituted a new and separate land district, to be called the Cimarron land district, and the subdivisional lines of townships in said public land strip may be surveyed under the current appropriations for the surveying service, the work to be done under the direction and supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, and said public land strip is hereby attached to the judicial district of Kansas until the establishment of civil government in said Territory. Lands therein may be entered for town site purposes, for the several use and benefit of the occupants of such town sites by such trustee or trustees as may be named by the Secretary of the Interior for that purpose, such entries to be made under the provisions of section 2.387 of the revised statutes as nee as may be, and when such entries shall have been made, the Secretary of the Interior shall provide by regulation for the proper execution of the trust in favor of the inhabitants of the town site, including the surveyor the land into lots according to the spirit and intent of said section 2.387 of the revised statutes. whereby the same result would be reached as though the entry had been made by a county judge and the disposal of the lots of such town site and the proceeds of the sale thereof had been prescribed by the legislative authority of a State or Territory; provided that no more than 320 acres shall be embraced in one town site entry.

Section 2. That the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint a Register and a Receiver of Public Moneys for said district, and said officers shall reside in the place where said land office is located and shall have the same powers and shall discharge similar duties in the other land offices in the State of Kansas.

This bill now goes to a conference committee of the two houses. Senators Plumb, Teller and berry are the conferees upon the part of the Senate.
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