Patenting and Arid Frontier: Use and Abuse of the Public Land Laws in Owens Valley, California

ABSTRACT

Five nineteenth-century policies for alienating the federal public domain only partially fulfilled their objectives when applied in the arid setting of Owens Valley, California. The Homestead Law was most successful in advancing the family farm ideal, to judge by the persistence of small holdings several decades after land entry. Preemption claims, coincident in time and space with homesteading, were more often consolidated into larger farm units. The Desert Land Act, though designed to encourage irrigated farming in the arid West, tended to attract nonresident speculative entries on marginal lands, most of which were eventually consolidated into large grazing units. State Land Grants also contributed to large-scale holdings, whereas the Timber Culture Act, though used for entry in the 1880s, had little relevance to final settlement.

Public land policies were generally adequate for settling the well-watered north end of Owens Valley, but they were unsuccessful in reclaiming most of the irrigable lands of the vast arid stretches of the valley's southern townships. Federal land measures failed to account for the environmental diversity which prevails in the arid West and made no provision for the cooperative reclamation of desert lands. Unsound land alienation policies for the arid public domain resulted in the urban use of Owens Valley's water resources.

Key Words:

• land alienation policies
• cadastral mapping
• homesteading
• Desert Land Act
• land speculation
• arid West
• Owens Valley
• Los Angeles