General Land Office

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The General Land Office (GLO), a former agency of the United States government, was created in 1812 to take over functions previously conducted by the United States Department of the Treasury relating to the public domain lands. It oversaw the surveying, platting and sale of the public lands in the Western United States and administered the Homestead Act and the Preemption Act in disposal of public lands. The frantic pace of Public Land sales in the 19th century west led to the expression "Land Office business" meaning a thriving, or high volume trade.

Figure 1. This BLM map depicts the Public Domain Lands surveyed and platted under the auspices of the General Land Office to facilitate the sale of those lands.

The GLO was placed under the Secretary of the Interior when that department was formed in 1849.

Reacting to public concerns about forest conservation, Congress in 1891 authorized the president to withdraw timber lands from disposal. President Cleveland then created seventeen forest reserves of nearly 18,000,000 acres (73,000 km²), which were initially managed by the General Land Office. In 1905, Congress transferred responsibility for these reserves to the newly created Forest Service within the Department of Agriculture.

From 1900, it focused on conservation. Entering the twentieth century the GLO shifted from a primary function of land sales to issuing leases and collecting fees and royalties from minerals off lands recently withdrawn from disposal under the Withdrawal Act of 1910, and other custodial duties.

On July 16, 1946, the GLO was merged with the Taylor Grazing Service, established in 1934, to become the Bureau of Land Management, an agency of the Interior Department responsible for administering the remaining 264,000,000 acres (1,070,000 km²) of Pulic Lands still in federal ownership.

An early commissioner was John McLean, later associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.

The Bureau Of Land Management provides website access to images of General Land Office Records (Federal Land Patents and Survey Plats) issued between 1820 and 1908 at GLO Records.