30 U.S.C. § 36
Section 36 · Subdivisions of 10-acre tracts; maximum of placer locations; homestead claims of agricultural lands; sale of improvements
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 10 court decisions — leading case Lara v. Secretary of the Interior (1987)
Most recently applied in Lara v. Secretary of the Interior (July 1987)
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.
Legal subdivisions of forty acres may be subdivided into ten-acre tracts; and two or more persons, or associations of persons, having contiguous claims of any size, although such claims may be less than ten acres each, may make joint entry thereof; but no location of a placer claim, made after the 9th day of July 1870, shall exceed one hundred and sixty acres for any one person or association of persons, which location shall conform to the United States surveys; and nothing in this section contained shall defeat or impair any bona fide homestead claim upon agricultural lands, or authorize the sale of the improvements of any bona fide settler to any purchaser.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Codification
R.S. §2330 derived from act July 9, 1870, ch. 235, §12, 16 Stat. 217.
Submerged Lands Act
Provisions of this section as not amended, modified or repealed by the Submerged Lands Act, see section 1303 of Title 43, Public Lands.
Cross References
Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin mineral lands, see section 48 of this title.