30 U.S.C. § 161
Section 161 · Entry of building-stone lands; previous law unaffected
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 10 court decisions — leading case United States v. Coleman (1968)
Most recently applied in Watt v. Western Nuclear, Inc. (June 1983)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Any person authorized to enter lands under the mining laws of the United States may enter lands that are chiefly valuable for building stone under the provisions of the law in relation to placer mineral claims. Lands reserved for the benefit of the public schools or donated to any States shall not be subject to entry under this section. Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to repeal section 471 of title 16 relating to the establishment of national forests.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
References in Text
The mining laws of the United States, referred to in text, are classified generally to this title.
Codification
First two sentences of this section are from section 1 and last sentence of this section is from section 3 of act Aug. 4, 1892.
Cross References
Placer-mineral claims provisions, see sections 35 to 38 of this title.