Mineral Land Policy

Prior to the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in California in the spring of 1848 and the influx of mining activity in the following year, American mining law was based on the Miner's Code, or common law of mining. By 1849, more than one hundred thousand miners flocked to the Sierra Nevada and foothills of California in the hope of striking it rich. Within the next ten years, miners, speculators, and investors stretched across much of California and east across Nevada, Utah, and into the Colorado Rockies, as well as into parts of Arizona and New Mexico. At that time, miners developed and worked claims on public lands but were unable to procure legal titles to their claims until Congressional Acts in 1866 and 1872 codified the common law. Thus, prior to 1866, all mineral claims made were considered to be a form of trespassing on public domain, or federal land. Each state developed property laws, and mining camps developed provisions for themselves. Typically, the unwritten code established provisions for discovering a mineral deposit, who was entitled to the possession of the deposit, a limit on the area that could be held as a result of the discovery, procedures for marking and thereby claiming the discovery, and the amount of work involved to retain ownership to that claim.

In July 1866, Congress issued an act declaring public lands both open and free to mineral exploration; the only stipulations under this legislation were a limit on the length of the claim (two hundred feet or less along a vein), the right to governmental regulations, and an understanding that mining districts could [Page 450]not make rules that were in conflict with U.S. laws. The initial law focused on lode deposits. Lode claims typically refer to veins, ledges, or other rocks containing valuable minerals, such as when gold is found in quartz veins. After May 1872, the length of a lode claim was limited to no longer than fifteen hundred feet along the vein or lode.

Congress also authorized the 1866 Placer Claim Act (later amended by the Placer Act of 1870), which sanctioned the mining of alluvial deposits where gold may be extracted through the use of water or dry panning, also referred to as “placer deposits.” The term placer is attributed to the Spanish term plaza de oro, or place of gold. Placer claims are typically 1,320 square feet, or a total of ten acres.

As mining activities increased throughout the western United States, so did the associated technology. In addition to using the pan (or batea), miners turned to the use of cradles, long-toms, ground sluicing, rifflebox sluices, and rockers for separating the rich mineral ore from the placer deposits. Dry placer mining was used in areas where water was unavailable for processing ore, but it relied on similar technology. Drilling, blasting, and quarrying were adapted for extracting lode deposits, such as mineral-rich ores, hard rock, and fuels.

In 1872, Congress issued an act commonly known as the General Mining Law of 1872. This act, also known as Title XXII Revised Statutes of the United States Section 2319-2346, promoted the development of mining resources throughout the United States. Although amended under the U.S. Code (30 USC 21-54), the General Mining Law of 1872 remains the precedent for the development, exploitation, and acquisition of all mineral resources (including all metallic and certain nonmetallic minerals, except coal) on public lands.

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