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The General Land Office (GLO) was an
independent agency of the United States government Independent agencies of the United States federal government are agencies that exist outside the federal executive departments (those headed by a Cabinet secretary) and the Executive Office of the President. In a narrower sense, the term refers ...
responsible for
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
lands in the United States. It was created in 1812 to take over functions previously conducted by the
United States Department of the Treasury The Department of the Treasury (USDT) is the national treasury and finance department of the federal government of the United States, where it serves as an executive department. The department oversees the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and t ...
. Starting with the passage of the
Land Ordinance of 1785 The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress of the Confederation on May 20, 1785. It set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west. Congress at the time did not have ...
, which created the
Public Land Survey System The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 1 ...
, the Treasury Department had already overseen the survey of the "Northwest Territory", including what is now the state of Ohio. Placed under the
Department of the Interior The United States Department of the Interior (DOI) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government headquartered at the Main Interior Building, located at 1849 C Street NW in Washington, D.C. It is responsible for the mana ...
when that department was formed in 1849, it was merged with the
United States Grazing Service The United States Grazing Service was a part of the United States Department of the Interior that managed grazing lands and carried out the Taylor Grazing Act, which leased public land for grazing. It was later merged with the General Land Offi ...
(established in 1934) to become the
Bureau of Land Management The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior responsible for administering federal lands. Headquartered in Washington DC, and with oversight over , it governs one eighth of the country's la ...
on July 16, 1946.


History

The GLO oversaw the
surveying Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...
, platting, and sale of the public lands in the
Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...
and administered the
Homestead Act The Homestead Acts were several laws in the United States by which an applicant could acquire ownership of government land or the public domain, typically called a homestead. In all, more than of public land, or nearly 10 percent of th ...
and the
Preemption Act The Preemption Act of 1841, also known as the Distributive Preemption Act ( 27 Cong., Ch. 16; ), was a US federal law approved on September 4, 1841. It was designed to "appropriate the proceeds of the sales of public lands... and to grant 'pre-empt ...
in disposal of public lands. The frantic pace of public land sales in the 19th century American West led to the
idiomatic expression An idiom is a phrase or expression that typically presents a figurative, non-literal meaning attached to the phrase; but some phrases become figurative idioms while retaining the literal meaning of the phrase. Categorized as formulaic language, ...
"land-office business", meaning a thriving or high-volume trade. For most of the active period of public land settlement, district land offices were the basic operating units that conducted the business of transferring title. All transactions relative to the disposal of public land within a declared land district were handled through its land office by officials designated as
register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...
s, who recorded land applications, and receivers, who accepted payments for land and issued receipts. The position of receiver was abolished, July 1, 1925, and the functions devolved upon the register, whose title was changed to "manager" in 1946. The first of 362 district land offices was opened at
Steubenville, Ohio Steubenville is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Ohio, United States. Located along the Ohio River 33 miles west of Pittsburgh, it had a population of 18,161 at the 2020 census. The city's name is derived from Fort Steuben, a 1 ...
, on July 2, 1800; the last at
Newcastle, Wyoming Newcastle is a city in and the county seat of Weston County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 3,374 at the 2020 census. Geography Newcastle is located at (43.853183, -104.209343). It is situated at the southwest edge of the Blac ...
, on March 1, 1920. The peak year for land offices was 1890, with 123 in operation. The subsequent closing of the public domain gradually reduced the number of land offices, until, in 1933, only 25 offices remained. The GLO was placed under the
Secretary of the Interior Secretary of the Interior may refer to: * Secretary of the Interior (Mexico) * Interior Secretary of Pakistan * Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (Philippines) * United States Secretary of the Interior See also

*Interior ministry ...
when the Department of the Interior was formed in 1849. Reacting to public concerns about forest conservation, Congress in 1891 authorized the
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
to withdraw timber lands from disposal.
Grover Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American ...
then created 17 forest reserves of nearly , which were initially managed by the GLO. In 1905, Congress transferred responsibility for these reserves to the newly created Forest Service, under the Department of Agriculture. Beginning in the early 20th century, the GLO shifted from a primary function of land sales to issuing
lease A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...
s and collecting
grazing fee A grazing fee is a charge, usually on a monthly basis, for grazing a specific kind of livestock. Australia In New South Wales, Australia, maximum grazing fees have been set by regulation at $1.00 per head of large stock or per 10 (or less) head of ...
s for livestock raised on public lands, and
royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
from
mineral In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. ( ...
s off lands recently withdrawn from disposal under the Withdrawal Act of 1910, as well as other custodial duties. Thus, beginning around 1900, the GLO gained a focus for conservation of renewable public resources, as well as for their exploitation. On July 16, 1946, the GLO was merged with the
United States Grazing Service The United States Grazing Service was a part of the United States Department of the Interior that managed grazing lands and carried out the Taylor Grazing Act, which leased public land for grazing. It was later merged with the General Land Offi ...
(established in 1934 under the
Taylor Grazing Act The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 () is a United States federal law that provides for the regulation of grazing on the public lands (excluding Alaska) to improve rangeland conditions and regulate their use. The law initially permitted of previously ...
) to become the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency of the Interior Department responsible for administering the remaining of public lands still in federal ownership. An early commissioner was
John McLean John McLean (March 11, 1785 – April 4, 1861) was an American jurist and politician who served in the United States Congress, as U.S. Postmaster General, and as a justice of the Ohio and U.S. Supreme Courts. He was often discussed for ...
, later an
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States An associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States is any member of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the chief justice of the United States. The number of associate justices is eight, as set by the Judiciary Act of 18 ...
. The BLM makes images of GLO records (federal land patents, survey plats and field notes, land status records, and tract books) issued between 1787 and present publicly available on its website. Since 1990, the BLM's Geographic Coordinates Database (GCDB) program has endeavored to generate coordinate values for each established PLSS corner using the official survey records of the GLO and BLM on a township basis. The GCDB data are available for download by the public in GIS shapefile format from the GeoCommunicator Land Survey Information System website. The GCDB coordinates are also available to the public in the GCDB flat file and GCDB coverage formats via the National Operations Center website.


Gallery

File:Credit Island Iowa 1838.jpg, Example of a portion of an 1838 GLO map,
Credit Island Credit Island is an island in the Mississippi River on the south west side of Davenport, Iowa within the Quad Cities area. Its name was derived by the use of the island as an early Indian trading post. Credit could be obtained on the pro ...
, now
Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and a ...
File:US_General_Land_Office_Deed_1845.jpg, An 184
GLO land patent
File:US GENERAL LAND OFFICE Geodetic control point Douglas WY.JPG, A GLO survey marker from 1913 in
Douglas, Wyoming Douglas is a city in Converse County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 6,120 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Converse County and the home of the Wyoming State Fair. History Douglas was platted in 1886 when the Wyoming C ...
File:General_Land_Office_Survey_Marker_Sahuarita_Arizona_2014.jpg, GLO marker from 1941 near
Sahuarita, Arizona Sahuarita is a town in Pima County, Arizona, United States. Sahuarita is located south of the Tohono O'odham Nation and abuts the north end of Green Valley, 15 miles (24 km) south of Tucson. The population was 34,134 at th2020 census His ...


See also

*
List of Commissioners of the General Land Office The General Land Office was an independent agency of the United States government responsible for public domain lands in the United States. It was created in 1812, and it merged with the United States Grazing Service in 1946 to become the Bureau of ...
* Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey *
Beginning Point of the Louisiana Purchase Survey The Louisiana Purchase Historic State Park, located in eastern Arkansas, commemorates the initial point from which the lands acquired through the Louisiana Purchase were subsequently surveyed. The park encompasses of forested wetlands, a lan ...
*
National Irrigation Congress The National Irrigation Congress was held periodically in the Western United States beginning in 1891 and ending in 1916, by which time the organization had changed its name to International Irrigation Congress. It was a "powerful pressure group." ...


References


Further reading

*


External links


General Land Office Records: The Official Federal Land Records Site
, at Bureau of Land Management {{Authority control Defunct agencies of the United States government * Surveying of the United States Real estate in the United States Government agencies established in 1812 1812 establishments in the United States 1946 disestablishments in the United States Government agencies disestablished in 1946 Surveying organizations United States Department of the Interior agencies