Genesis of DC State Lands, Abridged Version

(Grandpa’s not to blame)

Tammi Fladager, Peerless Rancher

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Here it is in a nutshell.

When Montana became a state a long time ago (1889), the federal government basically said, “Hey, listen. We want you to educate your children. So this is what we are going to do for you. We are going to give you two sections of land out of every township in the state, (since they owned most of the land as BLM or Indian Reservations). Use this land to generate income to give to the schools to educate your kids.”

Of course, being the federal government, there were rules. The land had to be surveyed, the land had to be as close as possible to the land designated, and only so much land could be chosen in the individual counties. For those of you not asleep yet, you just snorted your coffee out on the paper because you know that didn’t happen.

Although there are many excuses, the State waited a long time to make their selections of state land. So long, in fact, that the only remaining lands available at the time happen to be in the northeastern portion of the state. I’ll bet you saw that one coming.