Source: https://collections.lib.utah.edu/details?id=1130301
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 08:39:20+00:00

Document:
132 NAVIGABLE WATERS divest this private title by declaring through the courts or the legislature that the river is navigable.151 Title to an island that arose on the bed of the Missouri River, a navigable stream in North Dakota, which had not become fast dry land at the time thfe State was admitted to the Union, vested in the State by reason of its then acquired ownership of the streambed.152 But islands in the Idaho portion of Snake River, also a navigable stream, which were already in existence when Idaho became a State, were not part of the bed of the stream or land under water, hence their ownership did not pass to the State or come within the disposing influence of its laws but remained public land as before.153 With respect to Willamette River, a navigable stream, the Oregon Supreme Court stated that from and after February 14, 1859, when Oregon was admitted to statehood, the State became the owner of the riverbed and all islands situated therein, lying between the high watermarks of the river- banks.154 To be in harmony with Scott v. Lattig and Moss v. Ramey, this statement would be correct with respect to the riverbed lying between the high watermarks of the banks, but it would have to be modified to relate only to islands lying below the high watermark at the time of admission to the Union. The only pertinent evidence showed that Meldrum Bar was an island on June 30, 1852, and was an "island overflowed at high water" in 1851. In the absence of evidence to overcome or rebut the statutory presumption that the status of an island overflowed at high water continued until statehood was acquired, it would seem to follow as a legal conclusion that the island was not "fast dry land" at that time and so it would then have been part of the streambed and hence would have become the property of the State of Oregon. The author's impression of this case is that the status of Meldrum Bar as an "island overflowed at high water" in 1851-52, and hence by unrebutted presumption in 1859, ipso facto disposed of any question of its ownership by the State as against the United States; and that in the absence of any controversy over it, the court was led to word its statement as to ownership of "all islands" so broadly. As Snake River forms part of the western boundary of Idaho, the thread of the stream being the true boundary, ownership of the bed on the Idaho side 151 Aladdin Petroleum Corp. v. State ex rel. Commissioners of Land Office, 200 Okla. 134, 139, 191 Pac. (2d) 224 (1948). 1S2Hogue v. Bourgois, 71 N. W. (2d) 47, 53 (N. Dak. 155). 153Scott v. Lattig, 227 U. S. 229, 244 (1913), reaffirmed in Moss v. Ramey, 239 U. S. 538, 545-546 (1916), wherein the Court said, with respect to another island in Snake River which was in its present condition when Idaho became a State: "It was fast dry land, and neither a part of the bed or the river nor land under water, and therefore did not pass to the State of Idaho on her admission into the Union but remained public land as before." ls*Freytag v. Vitas, 213 Oreg. 462, 465-467, 326 Pac. (2d) 110 (1958).

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