The Land Beneath the Courthouse

The Mahnomen County Courthouse has stood at 311 North Main Street in Mahnomen, Minnesota since 1909. It is a Classical Revival brick building that serves as the seat of county government. But a review of federal land patent records raises a serious question: was the courthouse built on land that was still held in federal trust for a White Earth Ojibwe allottee?

Using the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office (GLO) records, ArcGIS mapping tools, and the Public Land Survey System (PLSS), we traced the original patent holders for Section 2, Township 144 North, Range 41 West, 5th Principal Meridian — the area where the city of Mahnomen is situated. What we found was a timeline that doesn't add up.

PLSS Map Viewer — ArcGIS satellite view showing the Mahnomen County Courthouse (highlighted in yellow) located within the NE¼ SW¼ of Section 02. The panel at right confirms: Township 144N 42W, Section 02, Quarter Section SW, Quarter Quarter Section NESW.

The Allottee: Frank Glass

Frank Glass was a Chippewa Indian belonging to the White Earth Reservation. Under the General Allotment Act of 1887 (the Dawes Act) and the Act of January 14, 1889, Glass was allotted land in Section 2 of what would become the city of Mahnomen.

On December 30, 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt signed Trust Patent No. 3005, granting Frank Glass the following described land:

The trust patent meant the federal government held legal title to the land for Glass's benefit. Under its terms, the land could not be sold, transferred, taxed, or encumbered for a period of twenty-five years — meaning trust protections would not expire until approximately 1927.

Section 2 Allottees

Frank Glass was not the only allottee in Section 2. The BLM GLO records show multiple Chippewa allottees received patents for land in this section, all dated in 1902:

The Glass family — Frank, Cynthia E., and Leonora — held a significant block of allotments in the southwest portion of Section 2, forming a family allotment cluster that was common practice during the allotment era.

The Timeline Problem

This is where the story becomes troubling. Consider the following sequence of events:

What This Means

Under the terms of the 1902 trust patent, Frank Glass's allotment was held by the United States government for his sole use and benefit. During the trust period, the land was under federal — not state or county — jurisdiction. No state or county government should have been able to acquire, condemn, or build upon this land without explicit federal authorization.

The trust patent stated clearly that the land was held "in trust for the sole use and benefit of the said Frank Glass" and that the President could, at his discretion, extend the trust period. There was no provision in the patent for county acquisition or construction of government buildings.

The issuance of the fee simple patent in 1919 — ten years after the courthouse was already standing — raises the question of whether this conversion was done specifically to retroactively legitimize the county's use of the land. The 1919 patent was issued during the height of the "forced fee" era, when the federal government aggressively converted trust allotments to fee simple status, often without the allottee's knowledge or consent.

Historical Context: The Allotment Era

The Dawes Act of 1887 was one of the most devastating federal policies in the history of Indian Country. Under the guise of "civilizing" Native Americans and promoting individual land ownership, the Act broke up communal tribal lands into individual allotments. "Surplus" lands — often the majority of the reservation — were then opened to non-Indian settlement.

At White Earth, the allotment process was further compounded by the Nelson Act of 1889 and subsequent legislation that consolidated Minnesota Chippewa bands onto the White Earth Reservation. The result was a dramatic transfer of land from Ojibwe ownership to non-Indian ownership over the following decades.

The Burke Act of 1906 gave the Secretary of the Interior the power to issue fee simple patents before the 25-year trust period expired, supposedly to "competent" allottees. In practice, this was used as a tool to accelerate land dispossession. Commissioner Cato Sells' 1917 "Declaration of Policy" further accelerated this process by directing fee patents be issued to allottees deemed "competent" — often based solely on blood quantum rather than any actual assessment of the individual's circumstances.

Nationally, Indian land holdings decreased from approximately 138 million acres in 1887 to roughly 48 million acres by 1934, when the Indian Reorganization Act finally ended the allotment policy. At White Earth, the impacts were particularly severe.

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