The Sauk Centre herald., 1932-09-15
Permanent
State Trust
Fund Grows
Experts See Total of Two Bill
lion Dollars in the Dis
tant Future
IS NOW $1OO,OOO,OOO
State Land Grants Worthless
in the Beginning, Have
Vast Iron Deposits
IS NOW $1OO,OOO,OOO

st. Paul, Sept. -Minnesotas
permanent trust funds, the largest
of any state except Texas, now
total $8O,736,75O with new accumu-
lations every month guaranteeing
an income for education in the
state for centuries to come.
The funds have grown by leaps
and bounds in the last 20 years.
But there have been steady gains
since the early days of statehood
Wnen lawmakers, acting on the re-
commentator of Alexander Ram
sey, decided to assure future citi-
zens of some of the benefits of lib
eral federal land grants. Ramsey,
first territorial governor, and Min
nesotas second, propounded this
policy OF conservation at every
turn, asserting that old states had
blasted their heritages by unwise
exploitation.
The trust funds have been deriv-
ed from royalty and tax on iron
ore, sales of state lands and timber
including interest on land purchase
contracts. The principle of forms of
income set aside for the funds can
not be appropriated while the in
come from them is distributed for
the support of public schools and
the University of Minnesota.
In 1914 the total accumulations
amounted to $3O,923, 1896 with a raise
in the total of nearly $50,OOO.OOO in
the 18 years since. The discovery Of
ore on federal grants caused the
funds to increase at a rate which
Ramsey and other founders of the
state never contemplated.
State officials have never been
equipped with definite basis data
for estimating the eventual total of
the funds with belief that they may
reach the $500, 100000 mark at some
time. Many valuable ore properties
on state land have never been
worked because of the sufficiency
of the area opened to mining and
the decline in this activity in re-
cent years.
The permanent school fund is the
giant among the funds, it now
amounts to $63, ,1755, ,470. Conditions
of contracts for the mining of ores
from lands belonging to this fund
assure it of an additional $25,00o,-
600 with other of it's lands still un-
used.
There is now $5,618,s45 in the
permanent university fund and ore
lands now leased assure it of 81
100000 more. The swamp land fund
amounts to $11, ,563,571 and the in
ternal improvement fund contains
$378, 1862. Mineral leases will add not
less than $6,OOO,OOO to these in the
opinion of State Auditor Stafford
D. King.
From ore leases covering lake
beds the state will receive about
$3,6O0,OOO with other lakes with
enormous estimated tonnage still
unused.
In all federal land grants in Min
nesota totaled 8,445, ,961 acres of the
states total area of 81, TAG, ,120 acres.
For common schools the govern
ment set aside 2,976, Asa acres; for a
university, 1854 acres; for inter-
nal improvement, 496,482 aces; as
swamp or overflowed lands, 4,709,-
038 acres with other grants for var
ious purposes amounting to 1888
acres.
The state now has on its own
lands 27 opened mines. One OF
these, the Missabe mountain at
Virginia, covering about 160 acres,
is the famous lemon which turned
out to be an golden egg. The tract
was given to the state in lieu of an
other in southern Minnesota con-
tanned in an original federal grant
and which the federal government
withdrew from it's gift order be-
cause a squatter had settled there.
Suuatters were considered valuable
at that time.
The tract was considered of little
value except for its timber but
when ore was discovered it proved
to be a real bonanza. That 16O
acres last year when it still con-
tanned 21,50O,O00 tons of CONNER
cial ore, had yielded in royalties
alone for the state school fund,
s17,OOOOOO. It's additional yield in
the form of local and other taxes,
some of them indirect, runs into
millions Of dollars.