Source: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1130302
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 20:57:22+00:00

Document:
LANDS UNDERLYING NAVIGABLE WATERS 133 passed from the Unites States to the State upon admission to the Union; and the subsequent disposal of fractional subdivisions on the eastern bank (Idaho side) carried with it no right to the bed of the river, "save as the law of Idaho may have attached such a right to private riparian ownership."155 The original and the altered positions of the Idaho Supreme Court on this question are noted under the immediately succeeding topic. Title Conferred by State upon Riparian Landowners Some States have not elected to retain title to lands under the navigable waters within their boundaries.156 "The state does not hold title to the river beds in Nebraska. * * * Such river beds are as effectually the subject of private ownership as other property, except that, in the case of navigable streams, there is an easement for public navigation."157 Title in the case of navigable streams is in the riparian proprietor to the thread of the stream, subject to the navigation easement.158 The earlier decisions of the Idaho Supreme Court specifically recognized the principle previously announced in Nebraska. A case decided in 1908 includes the following in the syllabus by the court:159 ... In this state the doctrine is announced and adopted, that a riparian owner upon the streams of this state, both navigable and non-navigable, takes to the thread of the stream, subject, however, to an easement for the use of the public. A subsequent decision reaffirmed the rule, holding that patentees of land on the east bank of Snake River took title to the middle thread of its navigable channel, including an island between the thread and the meander line.160 This decision was reversed by the United States Supreme Court in Scott v. Lattig, discussed above under "Retention of Title Elected by State."161 The High Court held that title to the streambed on the Idaho side had passed to the State, but that the island was fast land at the time Idaho was admitted to the Union and hence, although surrounded by river waters, it remained the 155Scott v. Lattig, 227 U. S. 229, 243 (1913). 1S6"Upon the admission of the State of Michigan into the Union the bed of the St. Marys River passed to the State, and under the law of that State the conveyance of a tract of land upon a navigable river carries the title to the middle thread." United States v. Chandler-Dunbar Water Power Co., 229 U. S. 53, 60-61 (1913). lslThies v. Platt Valley Public Power & In. Dist., 137 Nebr. 344, 346, 289 N. W. 386 (1939). lssKinkead v. Turgeon, 74 Nebr. 573, 580, 583-591, 104 N. W. 1061 (1905), 109 N. W. 744, 745-748 (1906). 159 Johnson v. Johnson, 14 Idaho 561, 562, 95 Pac. 499 (1908). 160'Lattig v. Scott, 17 Idaho 506, 518, 532-533,107 Pac. 47 (1910). 161 Scott v. Lattig, 227 U. S. 229, 243-244 (1913).

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