LAND ALIENATION IN HOUSTON COUNTY, MINNESOTA: PREFERENCES IN LAND SELECTION

Geographers by and large have failed to make very effective or extensive use of the information available in the Tract Books of the General Land Office, which provide evidence of the selection of lands in the public land states of the United States: The Tract Books show the date of entry for each claim, the name of the transferee, and the nature of the transaction for each plot of land alienated from public domain. This case study of Houston County, Minnesota will illustrate the use of these records to investigate initial land evaluations: Dates of alienation can reveal the precise land survey plots which were selected for purchase at a given time and those that were passed over until later (Map 1). This chronology of claims indicates the areas the initial investigators considered most valuable. Houston County was opened in August, 1854 as part of the Root River Land District, with the land office located in Brownsville:. The only tracts not available were the school lands, sections sixteen and thirty-six of each township, which the State had to hold and sell later: The scant evidence on the individuals and circumstances involved in single land transactions is uneven and has not been used.