Chapter CLXVI. *confirming certain Land Entries under the third [proviso to the first] Section of the Act of third March, eighteen hundred and fifty-fee, entitled, “An Act making Appropriations for the Service of the Post-Office Department, during the fiscal Year ending the thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred and
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Chap. CLXVI.— An Act *confirming certain Land Entries under the third [proviso to the first] Section of the Act of third March, eighteen hundred and fifty-fee, entitled, “An Act making Appropriations for the Service of the Post-Office Department, during the fiscal Year ending the thirtieth of June, eighteen hundred and fifty-six.”* June 21, 1860. *Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,* That all entries which have Certain entries of land by mail contractors confirmed.heretofore been allowed by registers and receivers, and in regard to which no adverse claims have arisen under decisions of the Secretary of the Interior, or of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, setting aside such entries, under that portion of the third proviso to the first section of an act, approved third March, eighteen hundred and fifty-five, entitled 1855, ch. 201, § 1.
Vol. x. p. 684.“An act making appropriations for the service of the Post-Office Department during the fiscal year ending the thirtieth of June, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six,” in the following words: “That each contractor engaged, or to be engaged, in carrying the mails through any of the Territories west of the Mississippi, shall have the privilege of occupying stations at the rate of not more than one for every twenty miles of the route on which he carries a mail, and shall have a pre-emption right therein when the same shall be brought into market, to the extent of six hundred and forty acres, to be taken contiguously, and to include his improvements; but no such pre-emption right shall extend to any pass in a mountain or other defile,” be, and the same are hereby, confirmed, subject to any *bond fide* claim under any law of the United States to the whole or any portion of the lands embraced in said entries or locations made prior or subsequent to the date of the selection thereof by the persons aforesaid; and the Patents to issue.Commissioner of the General Land Office is hereby directed to issue a patent for the lands embraced in said entries, upon payment of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre for the land embraced in such patent:
Proviso.*Provided,* That each contractor shall satisfy the Secretary of the Interior that he has complied with the terms of his contract, and that said entries have been used and occupied as stations on the line of the route during the existence of his contract; and that the provisions of this act shall be restricted to one and the first *bond fide* set of pre-emptions on one and the same line of route. No new rights to be acquired under the act of 1855, ch. 201. Repeal. Sec. 2. *And be it further enacted,* That no rights, from and after the passage of this act, shall accrue under the provisions of the aforesaid act of third March, eighteen hundred and fifty-five, which provisions are hereby repealed, saving all rights heretofore acquired, or those provided for in the foregoing; and that for the purpose of facilitating the transportation of the public mails of the United States west of the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, and intermediate points, the Secretary of the Interior be, and he is hereby, authorized, upon the application of the Mail stations on the routes from Mississippi to the Pacific, to be reserved.Postmaster-General, to reserve, as mail stations, for the use and occupancy of mail contractors, during the existence of their contracts, a quantity of public lands, not exceeding the area of one section at any and all such localities as in his judgment are deemed necessary or advisable, to be taken where the public surveys have been made, according to the lines of those surveys; but where stations have been or may hereafter be designated in advance of the public surveys, such stations shall be laid off, under the direction of the Postmaster-General, in a square form, with power to order the adjustment hereafter of such boundaries, to conform to the lines of the public surveys, if such adjustment be deemed advisable, THIRTY-SIXTH CONGRESS.
Sess. I. Ch. 167. 1860. 71which lands thus reserved as stations shall be held as permanent mail service reservations, not subject to the operation of any existing preemption or other general land laws. Sec. 3. *And be it further enacted,* That whenever, from any cause, Reservations to be sold, &c. when stations are abandoned.any of the reservations made under the second section of this act, shall be no longer needed for the purposes originally intended, or the convenience of the service shall require a change of location, the reservation thus abandoned by the Postmaster-General shall be laid off into suitable lots or parcels, and sold at public sale to the highest bidder after at least three months’ public notice, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, and patents therefor shall issue as in the case of the sale of other public lands, and all laws, or parts of laws, heretofore passed, granting the preemption Laws granting preemption rights to mail contractors repealed.privilege to mail contractors be, and the same are hereby, repealed, but this repeal is not to affect any rights which may have actually vested under those laws before the passage of this act.
Approved, June 21, 1860.