Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1879.djvu/54

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The Hot Springs of Arkansas are situated in a narrow ravine between two rocky ridges in one of the lateral ranges of the Ozark Mountains.

The reservation contains about 2,565 acres. The mountain on which the springs are found, and which has been reserved from sale, under the act of March 3, 1877, contains about 265 acres.

Previous to October, 1875, the title to the most valuable portion of the land had been in dispute for more than fifty years. The controversies which existed were finally brought before the United States Court of Claims under the act of May 31, 1870, the provisions of the act giving the right to any person claiming title, either legal or equitable, to the whole or any part of the four sections of land known as the Hot Springs Reservation, in the State of Arkansas, to prosecute to final decision any suit that may be necessary to settle the same.

The various parties setting up a claim filed their petitions in the Court of Claims, the cases were consolidated, and after a full investigation, the court rendered a decree in favor of the United States, and adverse to all the claimants. An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, and after able arguments by distinguished counsel on both sides, Justice Bradley, in October, 1875, delivered the unanimous opinion of the court, affirming the decree of the Court of Claims.

The act which authorized these suits also provided that if, upon the final hearing of any cause provided for in the act, the court should decide in favor of the United States, it should order the lands into the possession of a receiver, to be appointed by the court, who should take charge of and rent out the same for the United States, until Congress should by law direct how they should be disposed of.

The receiver was duly appointed, and according to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, the rentals collected by said receiver and covered into the Treasury amounted to $33,744.78.

Under the act of March 3, 1877, the office of receiver was abolished and the President was authorized to appoint three discreet, competent, and disinterested persons, who should constitute a board of commissioners, whose duty it was to lay out the lands of the reservation into convenient squares, blocks, lots, avenues, streets, and alleys; designate the tract, including the Hot Springs Mountains, which was to be reserved from sale; to show by metes and bounds, on a properly prepared map, the parcels or tracts of land claimed by reason of improvement made thereon, or occupied by each and every such claimant and occupant on said reservation; to hear any and all proof offered by such claimants and occupants and the United States, in respect to said lands and the improvements thereon, and to finally determine the right of each claimant or occupant to purchase the same, or any portion thereof, at the appraised value fixed by said commissioners. They were also vested with the power to condemn and remove all buildings or obstructions upon