Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/672

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654
POLITICAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND INSTITUTIONAL.

and thus this magnificent gift to the state passed with no adequate return into the hands of a foreign private corporation.


In the matter of the swamp-lands, nothing was done to secure them during a period of ten years,[1] it being held that the right to them had lapsed through neglect, and Gibbs having had enough to do to secure the other state lands. George L. Woods, who in 1866 succeeded Gibbs as governor, made some further selections for school purposes. Not all of his selections had been approved when, in 1870, L. F. Grover was elected governor. The agricultural-college lands which had been selected in the Klamath Lake basin had been declared not subject to private entry by the land-office at Roseburg, within which district the lands lay, and that office had refused to approve the selection. The Oregon delegation in congress procured the pas sage of an act confirming the selections already made by the state where the lists had been filed in the proper land-office, in all cases where they did not conflict with existing legal rights, and declaring that the remainder might be selected from any lands in the state subject to preemption or entry under the laws of the United States; with the qualification that where the lands were of a price fixed by law at the double minimum of $2.50, such land should be counted as double the quantity towards satisfying the grant. This was followed by the establishment of another land-office, called the Linkton district, in the Klamath country, and the approval of the agricultural-college selections.[2] The internal improvement grant[3]

was also fully se-
  1. The legislature in 1870 memorialized congress for an extension of time for locating the salt-lands grant. Or. Jour. Sen., 1870, 211; U. S. Misc. Doc., 20, i., 41st cong. 3d sess.; but it was permitted to lapse. Message of Gov. Thayer, 1882, 19.
  2. Grover's Message, 1872, p. 12–13; Cong. Globe, 1871–2, app. 702; Zabriskie's Land Laws, sup. 1877, 27, 73.
  3. See Appendix to Governor's Message for 1872, which contains the official correspondence on the confirmation of the state lands, and is an interesting document; also Jackonsville Sentinel from Oct. 14 to Dec. 9, 1871.