I’ve got a post upthread about the OH Enabling Act, which served as the model for admission of later states. Title remained with the US till sold.
Some of the funds from land sold was turned over to states for purposes of road construction and later education. Possibly other purposes.
But AFAIK the big difference in federal land ownership pattern is not a difference in legislation, it’a difference in the land.
If anybody can demonstrate significant differences between the way eastern and western states were treated legally with regard to land transfer, I’d like to see it.
Unlike quite a few who discuss the issue, I’ve got probably close to a year of experience in total tramping around the deserts and mountains of the publicly owned West.
While I enjoy the land immensely, for most of it I fail to see why anybody, even today, would want to own it. Much is highly scenic, but there’s at least as much that looks more like an abandoned construction site than anything else.
The average stocking rate for cattle in the West ranges from 7 to 20 acres. At the NV rate to run 100 cow/calf units, you’d therefore need to own 2000 acres. Since the government presently charges ranchers the immense fee of $1.35 per month per cow/calf, I fail to see any economic incentive to buy land instead of paying that fee.
Found a source for private land grazing fees in MT. $23.60 per month. http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/Montana/Publications/economic/prices/grazefee.htm
Some land has oil or gas or other minerals, and that land should perhaps be auctioned to the highest bidder. But I just don’t see any reason most of the public land in the West would attract a buyer.
You are going to have to cite a law for me about the state’s right to hold all lands, or the right of the federal government to own land. How can you have statehood without sovereignty over the land? I’m telling you something changed, otherwise the western states would have looked like the eastern states on that map.
I don’t really care who owns it as long as its not Washington. Washington EPA uses this land as a dagger to impose its “Special” policies on the neighbors and that needs to end. Give the land to the State or local government if nobody will buy it. We need to get Washington DC out of this Business.