Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/124

118 not until the act of April 7, 1896, was the authority given the Territory to even lease the lands.

These lands demand particular consideration because they are the oldest and best known of the school lands and because since the building of the Roosevelt dam—

In the Salt River Valley reclamation project there are 13,003.59 acres of school land which at the date of statehood were held under lease by 202 lessees. This is the most valuable body of land, of similar area, in the State, and its careful and businesslike administration is of immense importance to the common-school fund. Its appraised value was $1,257,426.70, with appraised improvements amounting to $379,343.23. To these figures must be added a body of 1,496 acres of school lands under the Tempe Canal and independent of the Salt River project. This land is worth $146,975 and the improvements $42,363.65, making for the two tracts, together with the improvements, a total of $1,826,108.58, without considering water appropriations and privileges appurtenant to the land.

The occupation of this land by squatters and others dates back in some cases to 1870. As early as 1867 work was begun on some of the ditches, or canals, used in its irrigation. This work was continued and finally came to embrace the Salt, Maricopa, Grand, and Arizona Canals on the north, and the Tempe, Mesa, Utah, High Land, and Consolidated Canals on the south of the river, all of which are now included in the Salt River Valley project. It is estimated that when Congress gave the power of leasing school lands to the Territory in 1896, not less than 4,440 acres on the north side of the Gila and 2,820 acres on the south side were “under cultivation by squatters, who for varying periods had occupied the lands without warrant whatsoever and had enjoyed the fruits thereof without the payment of either rental or taxes.”

It thus became necessary that the Territory pass some enactment by which the interests and rights of the schools and of the squatters might be preserved.

The act of April 7, 1896, which finally gave the control of leases to the Territory, provided that the governor, the secretary of state, and the superintendent of public instruction, should, pending the