STATE LAND OFFICE:

The appraisals were made to establish the minimum price for which a tract would be sold. They include both appraisals for original sales and those for resales of payment-delinquent and tax-forfeited land.

Each appraisal sheet (one section or portion of a section is recorded on a sheet) gives the range, town, and section of the tract appraised; date of appraisal; and type of trust fund the tract belonged to. General information given for each section includes distances to the nearest village and post office, predominate nationality of area residents, condition of roads on or near the appraised parcels, extent of naturally reproducing timber on the parcels; and general comments on the quality of the land and its potential uses. The sheet also provides detailed descriptions of each quarter-quarter section appraised. These list the value and type of timber; soil type; acres of meadow, swamp, uplands, and waste; acres of cleared land; descriptions on any improvements on the land; appraised value per acre; and uses to which the land may be adapted.

Appraisals made after 1921 included a coded plat drawing of the section indicating the parcels covered by the appraisal. After 1933, resale appraisals usually note the last year in which the interest was paid on delinquent land and the last year in which taxes were paid on tax-forfeited land. There is also usually a notation of the year when the parcel was formally declared tax-forfeit or delinquent.

The main set of appraisals is supplemented by a compiled summary of appraisals of trust fund lands in Aitkin, Koochiching, Roseau, and St. Louis counties, headed “Return of appraisers of lands.” For each parcel of appraised land, it gives legal description, number of acres, kind of timber, brief notation of surface terrain and soil, value and number of acres of timber, prairie, and wasteland, a description of improvements, and value per acre.

This series also includes appraisals made for the Land Exchange Commission in 1942-1948. These appraisals were made of trust fund lands in Carlton, Cass, Cook, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake, Lake of the Woods, and St. Louis counties that were part of national forests, state forests, or other reserves and were to be exchanged for other federal land.

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Arranged by county and thereunder by range, township, and section within each of three chronological groups: 1862-1921, 1921-approximately 1947, and approximately 1933-approximately 1968; followed by Return of Appraisers of Lands and by the Land Exchange Commission appraisals.

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Minnesota. State Land Office. Appraisals of State Land. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession numbers: none; 978-14; 985-143; 987-52

Processing Information:

Catalog ID number: 990017350280104294

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Caution to users: These volumes are dirty, brittle, and torn.

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These volume numbers assigned arbitrarily to distinguish them on this list; the volumes themselves are unnumbered.

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Public lands -- Minnesota -- Valuation.

Soils -- Minnesota -- Classification.

Timber -- Minnesota.

Trust fund lands -- Minnesota.

Organizations:

Minnesota. Land Exchange Commission.

Document Types:

Maps -- Minnesota.

Functions:

Appraising.

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