Control records include Executive orders and proclamations relating to notices of land sales, opening and closing of land office, withdrawal or restoration of land for military reservations, national parks and forest, wildlife refuges, and reserviors, 1806-1949; "selection" and "adjustment" lists reflecting selection of land for railroads and wagon roads, 1829-1935; monthly abstracts of entries (in the Washington National Records Center) submitted to the central land office by district land office registers and receivers, 1796-1908; and GLO tractbooks (in the Washington National Records Center), ca.1800-1930. There are records relating to military bounty land warrants (in the Washington National Records Center), 1788-1855, including Virginia military bounty land warrants used to obtain patents for lands in the Virginia Military District in Ohio and warrants, assignments, identifications, wills, location certificates, and other records concerning the conveyances or locations of warrants granting public lands to veterans and heirs of veterans of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, Indian wars, and frontier skirmishes. Name indexes (in the Washington National Records Center) for Virginia military warrants and for warrants issued under acts of 1788, 1803, and 1812 are available. Records relating to the issuance of land scrip (in Washington National Records Center), 1830-62, were created under various laws beginning with an act of May 20, 1830, that provided for the exchange of unused military bounty land warrants, applications for scrip, scrip stubs, indexes, lists, copies of the scrip issued for warrants, "Agricultural College Scrip" (authorized by an act of July 2, 1862), "Chippewa Halfbreed Scrip" (provided for by a treaty of April 12, 1864), "Choctaw Scrip" (issued under an act of August 23, 1842), and "Surveyor General Script" (authorized by an act of July 4, 1836). Nonmilitary land entry papers (in the Washington National Records Center), 1788-1951, consist chiefly of records accumulated before the GLO issued patents for entries (including cash and credit purchases, preemption entries, and entries under the Graduation Act, Homestead Act, Timber Culture Act, Timber and Stone Act, and Desert Land Act) made under general land laws. These case files usually include financial records; records showing sucessive steps taken before a patent was issued; records containing claimant's age, residence, and citizenship; and land descriptions, information concerning land improvements, and records concerning uses of land required by various laws. Records concerning private land claims (claims originating in grants or other concessions from governments possessing sovereignty over territory that later became part of the United States) include extensive docket files for claims in California, Louisiana, Mississippi, and elsewhere, 1803-1908 (with some material dated as late as 1951), containing survey notes, transcripts of court proceedings, reports, correspondence, plats, and other records concerning administrative review and final adjudication of claims by the Washington office. Records, 1803-60, of special boards appointed to accumulate evidence and settle claims - especially those whose work covered areas now in Alabama, Mississippi, and California - include records of the Office of the Surveyor General of California, concerning the rancho period in California and consisting of "complete expedientes" (1-579), "incomplete expedientes"(1-315), transcripts and translations of documents for cases 1-809 presented to the Board of California Land Claims Commissioners to support titles, a journal and minutes of Board proceedings, and lists or indexes to land grants, 1852-56. Records relating to private land claims in Florida include warrants and survey plats, chiefly about British private grants, 1824-98; a few records of the Governor and Council of West Florida, 1770-79; and reports, correspondence, and lists concerning the Spanish archives of East and West Florida and the attempts by the Department of Interior to trace and acquire them, 1848-98. Records relating to Federal Townsites, 1888-1925, with indexes, include minutes, deed applications, contest records, accounts, and diagrams of the boards of townsite trustees established (particularly in Oklahoma and Alaska) to subdivide sites and sell townlots under supervision of the GLO Commissioner; and docket files of the GLO Washington office containing reports, correspondence, plats, and diagrams of townsites. Files concerning abandoned military reservations and some nonmilitary reservations, such as lighthouses and lifesaving stations, 1822-1937, with an index, include Executive orders, correspondence, title papers, plats, maps, blueprints, and tracings that document the GLO's role in the creation of military reservations from public lands and its responsibility for the disposal of reservations abandoned by the War and Navy Department. Other records relating to disposal of public lands include school selection and school indemnity selection lists and other records concerning grants to States for schools and other purposes, 1826-1938; reports, correspondence, and other records relating to swamp lands granted to States, 1849-1909; "Indian Reserve files" (in Washington National Records Center) relating to Indian allotment applications for land, 1839-1916, with a register, 1855-1916; "canal and reservior grants," with an index, relating to lands granted under an act of March 3, 1891, to provide irrigation, 1891-1922; "railroad rights-of-way files," 1878-1931, concerning rights-of-way to cross public lands granted railroads under an act of March 3, 1875; and "reclamation project files" relating to projects created on public lands for reclamation purposes, 1901-45. Records of GLO units concerned with public land disposals include letters sent by the Recorder's ("B") Division, concerning patents, 1817-1908; letters sent by the Public Lands ("C") Division, relating to public land disposals, 1796-1908; records of the Private Land Claims ("D") Division, concerning private land claims, 1788-1909; letters sent by the Railroad, Rights-of-Way, and Reclamation ("F") division, concerning lands granted for railroads, canals, and reservoirs, 1856-1909; letters sent by the Pre-Emption ("G") Division, relating to preemption and grants to States for schools, townsites, and other State selections, 1832-1908; letters sent by the Homestead Contests ("H") Division 1887-1908, and the Indian and Swamp Land ("K") Division, 1849-1908; records relating to accounting and financial matters of the Accounting ("M") Division 1853-1908; letters sent by the Miner Contest ("N") Division, 1844-1908; records of the Forestry ("R") Division, relating to use of military bounty land warrants and scrip on the public domain, 1788-1908; dockets (in the Washington National Records Center) relating chiefly to contests concerning mineral lands and railroad land grants that conflicted with private entries, 1870-1909; and Field Service Division case files and trespass cases (in Washington National Records Center), 1910-49. There are also records of closed district land offices, including records relating to ceded Chickasaw land, 1823-1908, and reports, correspondence, and other records, 1820-1919, of land offices in Mississippi; records of offices in Missouri and Arizona, including applications to purchase land in Missouri, 1818-1908; correspondence of the office at Gainesville, FLa., 1932-33; and local office tractbooks (in the Washington National Records Center), ca. 1800-1935.
