Landlocked BLM

[Whiptail]

I know landlocked BLM land has been discussed before but on a recent hunt I happened to see this on the map of our area and was wondering why this happened? My first thought was somebody got the Feds to sell them a bigger piece of land for less money and taxes but then I was wondering if there is more to the situation.

 

[SAJ-99]

Depends on a lot of things that have happened over the last 150 yrs or so. A lot of these states have been in the Union less time than that. There were no county roads so being landlocked wasn’t a thing.

 

[antlerradar]

A 150 years ago just about all land in the west was owned by the US government. Two acts of congress Changed that. One was the homestead act and the other had to do with railroads.

The railroad act gave the railroad company's every other section for miles as an incentive to build rail lines across the country. . I think it was something like 60 miles on both sides of the track but would have to read the act to be sure. When you see a map with a lot of BLM and Private Checkerboard, there is a good chance that the private was at one time owned by a rail road company.

The homestead act deeded 160 acres to any one that could prove up on the land. Of coarse the homesteaders claimed the best 160 acres that was available. This meant that the river and creek bottoms was the first land to be claimed and once the water was claimed the homesteaders took the best available ground with out water. In many places just about all the land was claimed. When the homestead act was ended in I think the 30's the remaining land that was unclaimed became what we now know as BLM.

When roads were being establish no one was concerned about access to BLM. Roads were built to get from point A to point B as easily as possible. For the most part this meant up and down the river and creek bottoms on land that had long ago been claimed by homesteaders.

 

[joelweb]

Your image isn't displaying correctly on my screen.

With that said, if you're interested in the history of specific parcels you can search for the original land patents on the BLM site here: https://glorecords.blm.gov/search/default.aspx?searchTabIndex=0&searchByTypeIndex=0

 

[Whiptail]

Thanks joelweb!

Sorry my picture didn't show. I uploaded the photo.

After looking at the website you referenced it looks like most of the land around it is sectioned into small lots with most of the issue dates in the 1930's. I'm guessing those lots didn't sell thus becoming landlocked? I'm also guessing they were removed from the market at some point? I'm surprised how many people own the little sections because the no trespassing sign made it sound like all the land was owned by a single person.

 

[MThuntr]

Some of those wonky BLM parcels may be Bankhead Jones lands that were abandoned post settlement/homesteading. The BLM took over ownership. Some of it may have even been farmed. May not be the case but another possibility

 

[mtlilguy]

I have heard BLM folks refer to parcels like this as the "forgotten lands". A clerical error when writing/granting a warranty deed leaves small parcels in government ownership even though the intent might have been to sell them during the homesteading days, or the purchaser simply forgot to include all of the parcels needed to block up their purchased land. Other times they are in rough country that is of no use to the adjacent landowner/purchaser so it gets left out on purpose. One thing to remember is during this time when government land was available to purchase, there were no rules and regulations dictating what they could and could not do on public land. Ranchers were free to graze it how they saw fit, access to water, logging, ect. So if the government land wasn't particularly useful to the landowner, there was no incentive to buy it just to turn it from yellow to white.

 

[Nemont]

Nothing unusual to find land locked BLM parcels. This is from an area I hunt regularly