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How railroads secure right of way under the law

Mr. H L Marvin
Locating Engineer
Guthrie, Okla.

Dear Sir;

Railway companies secure right of way across public lands under the Act of
March 3, 1875. That act provides for a width for 200 feet, i.e., a hundred feet each side of the center line, also grounds adjacent to such right of way for station buildings, depots, machine chops, side tracks, turnouts and water stations not to exceed in amount 20 acres for each station to the extent of one station for each ten miles of road.

In order to avail itself of the benefits of this law, a railroad Company must within
12 months after the location of any section of 20 miles of its road, if the same be upon surveyed lands, and, if upon unsurveyed lands within 12 after the survey thereof by the District where such land is located, a map of its road; and upon the approval thereof by the Secretary of the Interior the same shall be noted upon the plats of said office and thereafter all lands over which such right of way shall pass shall be disposed of subject to such right of way.

This act does not apply to any lands within the limits of any Military Park of
Indian Reservation of other land specially reserved from sale unless such right of way shall be provided for by treaty, stipulations of by act of Congress.

To carry out the provisions of this Act, the Commissioner of the General Land
Office has issued certain rules which have been approved by the Secretary of the Interior and must be complied with to secure favorable action.

Among these rules are:

All maps must be on tracing linen, the scale not less than 2000 feet to the inch
while station plats should be on the scale of 400 feet to the inch. These maps must also bear a prescribed form of certification made by the President and an affidavit made by the Chief Engineer.

These maps are made in the Chief Engineerās office and to insure their accuracy it
is necessary to have correct notes of alignment, connections in feet and decimals thereof between said center line and section corners, the distance being to the nearest point, and the corner definitely describe by section number, town and range. The filed maps must also say if lines were run on true or magnetic bearings. In the latter case the variations of the needle and date of determination must be stated.

The termini definitely located by accurate connections by courses and distances
with adjacent section lines and corners. In other words, such definite description of the line and termini must be shown as will enable any surveyor to fix and determine its location upon any section crossed.

These maps are scrutinized very closely in the Interior Department so it is very
important that all the data is carefully secured and shown on the map.

The act provides that each tract selected for station purposes must represent its
particular section of 10 miles and cannot be selected in any other section of 10 miles. That is, within the first 10 miles a tract may be selected at any point within said section and for the next 10 miles another tract may be selected within the limits of that section in the same manner as the first and other tracts may in like manner be selected for each additional 10 miles.

Right of way and station grounds on Indian lands are secured by special acts of
Congress. Over these lands, however, a width of 100 feet, i.e., 50ā each side of the center line is provided for with such additional widths not t o exceed 100 feet on each side, at such points where by reason of heavy work an increase is necessary.

Maps containing the same definite description and connections with section lines,
are required just as for right of way over Public Lands but as increased widths are allowed account of heavy work, it is important that the location of these extra width strips, be definitely and accurately located on the map.

Instead of station grounds of 20 acres being granted for each 10-mile section, a
width of 200 feet and length not to exceed 3000 feet in addition to the right of way is allowed.

The above will, I hope, serve to give you full information of data required to
enable correct maps to be prepared for filing and I will be obliged if you will please give such instructions to your assistants in charge as will insure the furnishing of the data required.

I enclose you herewith three additional copies of this letter. Please acknowledge
receipt and if there is any point not clear or if any additional information is desired, please advise.

Yours truly

(Sgd) James Dun

Chief Engineer.

Page 39 Volume 23 Splinters transcribed in altered form for the web by Russell Crump

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