Overview of California Private Land Claims and the Public Domain

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  1976 - Promised Land - A Contemporary Critique of Distribution of Public Land by the United States, Sheldon L. Greene

  This article, originally published in the Ecology Law Quarterly in June 1976, traces the progress of land reform in the management of public lands in the United States. Emphasis was placed on the impact of railroads and the subsidization of irrigation by the federal government on the distribution and use of public lands. The author concluded the article with suggestions for further land reform.

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  1993 - Practice and Procedure before the Interior Board of Land Appeals, David L. Hughs, Administrative Judge, Interior Board of Land Appeals

  This article, originally published in the Public Land & Resources Law Review, provides historical perspective on the history relating to public lands in the United States, the organization of the Office of Hearing and Appeals in the U.S. Department of the Interior, description of the Interior Board of Land Appeals and the subject matters over which it has jurisdiction, the scope of IBLA's authority, standard of re view, BLM decisions, and the process for initiating an appeal and procedures to be followed.

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  1769-1885 - Conceptual California Maps, David Hornbeck and David Fuller

  Conceptual maps from the 1983 publication, California Patterns: A Geographical and Historical Atlas by David Hornbeck in collaboration with cartographer, David Fuller, depicting California missions, presidios, pueblos, Spanish land concessions, Mexican land grants, patented ranchos, lands granted to Anglo Surnames, major hide and tallow collection points, and mission population. The maps cover periods from 1769 (Spanish and Mexican era) through the American patenting process up to 1885.

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  1976 - Mexican-American Land Tenure Conflict in California, David Hornbeck

  This paper examines the merging of the Mexican and American land tenure systems and how the two very different concepts of land acquisition, organization and maintenance clashed resulting in a distinctive settlement pattern not usually associated with Anglo settlement. The Mexican landscape, organized according to centuries of Spanish tradition, was the antithesis of the type established by the westward moving American pioneer. Spatial differences were many, particularly in the areas of agriculture, settlement, transportation, space economy and land tenure.

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  1979 - The Patenting of California's Private Land Claims, 1851-1885, David Hornbeck

  This paper examines the basis of the land-tenure conflict, its resolution, and the subsequent patenting of 482 private land claims that covered a total of 8.5 million acres of land in California. The problem of distinguishing between Mexican land grants and the American public domain was not one that time would easily resolve.

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  1982 - Grants of Land in California Made by Spanish or Mexican Authorities

  The 1982 California State Land Commission publication provides the historical background of landownership in California that led to the private land claims and subsequent patents issued. Contains discussion of the missions, presidios and pueblos. Provides a listing by each county of the name of the rancho (grant), patentee, patent date, patent number, watercourse, Township and Range, and the amount of acreage.

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  Links to Reports and Documents Relating to Land Grants and Public Domain

  Links to documents found in the Hornbeck Collection - Historical Land Use in California relating to land grants and the public domain.