The patterns of land ownership in Lane County are the result of a number of historical factors, which have shaped the county since the beginning of European-American settlement.
In 1843, Oregon's Provisional Government in Champoeg adopted the Organic Act, which allowed any male to claim 640 acres of land at no charge. The county's most accessible agricultural lands, particularly those on the Willamette River floodplain, fell into private hands long before the onset of public land management. They have largely persisted as private lands to the present day, though with significant conversion to urban uses.
In 1866, the United States Congress authorized a massive land grant to the East Side Company (later reorganized as the Oregon and California Company) to subsidize construction of a railroad from Portland to the California border. For 20 miles on either side of the proposed route up the Willamette Valley, the Federal Government gave the company alternating square-mile parcels from the unclaimed public domain as a form of payment. The land was to be sold to settlers in tracts no larger than 160 acres, for no more than $2.50 per acre. Most of the land was not suitable for farming, so very little was sold to settlers. Later, in contravention of the grant conditions, most of the land was sold illegally as timber tracts. The O&C company held the remaining land as its own timber reserve. After the passage of the Chamberlain-Ferris Act in 1916, the O&C reserve lands reverted to public ownership.
In 1946, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) was established by the Federal Government. The Bureau was given authority over most of the O&C lands, as well as other timber parcels and rangeland throughout the state. This helped create the current checkerboard pattern of BLM and private land ownership within Lane County.
The United States Forest Service (USFS), a division of the Department of Agriculture, controls a vast amount of Oregon's wooded mountains in both the Coast Range and the Cascade Mountains. The USFS also has authority over adjacent checkerboard O&C lands in the Cascade foothills. In addition, in the northern Coast Range of Lane County, the USFS has authority over abandoned or submarginal farmland that reverted to the government following the Bankhead-Jones Act of 1935. Most of the higher elevation Cascades, and two small coastal watersheds in the Coast Range in northwest Lane County, are designated Wilderness Areas.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages numerous flood control and irrigation dams in Lane County. The Corps owns the facilities of all these sites, including Fern Ridge Reservoir. In many cases the Corps also owns the land around the periphery of the reservoirs. This occurs around Cougar, Lake Creek, and Lookout Point Reservoirs, all of which provide flood control capabilities on the Willamette or McKenzie Rivers.
The State of Oregon and Lane County each own small areas of land in Lane County. Oregon Department of Transportation lands are excluded from this map and analysis.
Text after: James E. Meacham et. al. (Atlas of Lane County, Oregon, 1990: 18)
