Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-18
An Iowa Mans Experience in
Searching for Public Lands.
A Scheme of Land Sharks to Attract
Prospectors-"All Taken. but
Claims are Cheap"
Difficulties Encountered By the state Not Hav
ing the Lands Properly Surveyed
Irregular Classification.
ABERDEEN, TEX. March Is, 1890.

Knowing there IS q considerable num-
Der of people looking for desirable
school land to locate uponS [ write
you my experience in looking for
said land. / came to Texas from
Iowa early in February, having
been attracted here by the pros
pect of getting school land on long time.
I visited the counties along the Fort
Worth nd Denver from Wichita Falls to
Childress, could always hear of school
lands in the "next county, but on
reaching there would be told F'all taken,
but plenty of claims can be bought
cheap 1t seems the land agents adver-
tise school lands to draw people and then
prepare themselves by getting squatters
on all the desirable sections near by and
then make pTospectors believe there is
no more school land and sell
their squatter cluims and set their squat
tiers down on other lands. This specu-
laring in claims makes it to the interest
of many men to smother school lands.
The consequence Of this is many pros
pectors who would take up lands and
make good citizens become Disguised
with the nest of SINNERS at the county
seats and leave the state. l have met
with instances Of this kind with men
from Kentucky, Kansas and Iowa. These
men have all either returned home or
gone to other states to find homes. 4
few instances along this line may be to
the point. In one county a man was
looking for land and the county surveyor
told him he would show him a good
school section for 81 per acre, in other
words a county officer asked a pros
pector S640 to show him q piece of
state lands. In this case the man went off
and bought railroad land. And have
met with great many who have located
on railroad land that would have been
glad to locate on school land could they
have found 1t. No doubt these sharks
fleece many, and / know they drove
many from the state. ] have struck
some instances where land agents have
told men the numbers of school sections
for $50, but they generally strike for
larger fish.
Some one is ready to suggest the coun-
ty records. Why don 4 you go TO them?
But let us see about that. 1 gave it a
trial, first by spending several days
studying the land laws of the state, then
several more at the courthouse getting
onto the system of county records,
classification and surveys; then, armed
with lot of county maps and copy of
the classitications, l started for the couu-
try, for by this time / was convinced
that nothing but systematic hunt would
enable me to find what L wanted. Sc
lected an agricultural section where from
all report good land lay. On reaching
he place 1 fonnd nice land, but saw
hon -
ter who had not filed, but on calling on
the man he showed me his certificate of
award from Commissioner Hall. Still
the record the clerk gave me showed
that land vacant, and thus found it
with several sections and was out another
days time and expense, and learned the
records could not be relied on. do not
know the cause of their seeming incom- |
pleteness.
Next l struck out into an unorganized !
county, when l learned there wGs only /
twelve or fifteen settlers and no county !
officers nor land agents, here l found q !
fine tract of land, and knew some of it |
was school land, but as the state had |
not had it surveyed and the corners |
marked 1 was up a stump again, as 1 |
could not tell which was school land |
without getting a surveyor to run line |
fifteen or twenty miles, and the chances |
were then that 1 would get in the hands |
of a land-shark surveyor and he would |
charge big price and set me down to
improve a railroad section in the end.
Finally, after nearly three weeks
wandering, struck Collinsworth, an
other unorganized county, with only
few settlers. They were a very pleasant
people and told me all they could about
school land, but said all the good sections
were taken, but they had heard there
was some good land north of Salt Fork
of Red river, and went on to Aberdeen,
n postoffice lately established. Mr.. H.
j Messer, the postmaster, at his own
expense, got the state surveyor to run G
line, and then he got corner and took
uP section. From his corner 1 began
looking around and soon found nice
section, of which all but about fifty acres
is pillow land, but behold you! it was
CLASSIFIED as grazing land, leased, and
could not be taken up. Other sections
were found TO be like this, and some
very rough and stony ones, classified as
agriculturali so 1 asked how this classifi-
cation was done, and found q man had
just rode across the country on horse
back and classified the land on both
sides of him. AS the lines had
never been established, he could
not know one section from
another, only as he guessed at location,
and cannot, therefore, be blamed much
for doing most OF his classifying in his
tent; but some one is manifestly to blame
for such an utterly unjust classification
and for its being so difficult to find school
Land, and it seems to me there is q rem
edy for some Of these difficulties. If the
state land commissioner would use some
OF the funds am told are at his disposal
TO have this (COllinsworth) county prop
erly surveyed, the corners marked and
lands reclassifed, a great many people
now hunting for homes could find them
here, and the state would be receiving
$50 interest instead of S25 leass money on
each section, and the state would in
crease in population and wealth.
What is true of this county is no doubt
true of others. PrOspectors could get
over all other difficulties, if when they
found a nice section they could tell
whether il was school or railroad. and
its number and block. which could be
easily done il the state would have its
lands surveyed and iron pins put down at
one OF more corners of each section, Civ