Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/164

154 The selections were mainly in Union, Baker and Umatilla counties. In 1868 the price of all state lands in eastern Oregon was fixed at $1.25 in currency to pre-emptors and $1.25 in coin to other purchasers. No person was to get more than would make his purchases from the state exceed 320 acres. The purchase, too, must inure only to his own benefit.

These eastern Oregon state lands had ready sale at these nominal figures and easy terms ; in ten years all but about ten per cent had been disposed of. The application of the proceeds from the sale of the lands of the internal improvement grant will be referred to in a special discussion later of the application of the funds derived from the different grants.

The Swamp Land Grant. The state's headlong hurry — once conscious of having a swamp land grant — in opening its sale of swamp lands before it had established its right to any specific tracts caused it no end of trouble. The legislative assembly of 1860, when requested by the Department of the Interior to indicate whether it would abide by the field notes of the surveys' for designating the swamp lands to which the state was entitled or whether it preferred to furnish evidence through its own agents as to the swampy character of lands it claimed, did not deign to give a reply, — at least no response was forthcoming. After the lapse of just a decade an Oregon legislature did wake up on this matter. It became apprehensive that lands which the state might claim as swamp lands were being disposed of by the United States under homestead and pre-emption laws. Accordingly an act was passed at this session "providing for the selection and sale of the swamp and overflowed lands belonging to the state of Oregon." By the terms of this law the governor, as commissioner of lands, or his deputies, were "to proceed as soon as practicable to select in the field all the lands rendered unfit for cultivation by inundation or overflow." Such selected lands were then to be advertised in a newspaper in each county and sold "at a price not less than one dollar per acre in gold coin."