What was the thinking back then to sell this land and then keep the mineral rights?
After the thirties my dad bought his uncle's 3 quarters of land from FLB they had reposes from him.
As i understood, paid $2,700 for those 3 quarters. Sold the uncle's house for $900 and crop 30 acres. Balance was quack grass for winter pasture. In 3 years had it paid for. FLB did keep the mineral rights.
However, i strongly believe all mineral rights need to stay with the land and not treated as a separate item. Same with those who want to keep hunting rights.
State needs to dead those rights back to the surface landowner as does FLB. db
What the hell? Are you seriously talking about stealing one's property and giving it to someone else? Most of the time in private sales, the land was offered up at $XXX per acre including minerals. OR, you could choose to buy just the surface acres at $XXX - $XX. Most of the people buying land considered themselves farmers, not investors. So they budgeted for the purchase of the surface rights in order to be able to grow a crop with an overall lower cost for the land.
What you are proposing is straight-up theft. WTF?
FWIW, there are also minerals owned by the State dating back to the 30s and 40s where a farmer needed a loan to stay on the farm. The State legislature, being quite ag friendly, wrote legislation that gave them loans at well below market rates with the buy-down on the interest rates being provided by giving the "worthless" minerals to the State for a lower interest rate. Remember, oil wasn't discovered in ND until 1953(?), so most of those landowners realistically had little to no interest in owning minerals, and the State did because they wanted gravel for roads. The minerals for lower interest rates also brought along the few legislators who weren't necessarily as ag friendly and wanted to make sure non-ag voices in the state received something for subsidizing the below market interest rates.
I know a few people whose grandpappy traded his minerals to the state in order to receive favorable loans. Lots of those people's grandkids and great grandchildren are pissed as hell at the State, but should probably be just as angry at dear ol' gramps for doing what he had to do to keep the land as they now miss out on royalties even though they still enjoy the benefits of owning the surface acres that gramps would have probably lost without that loan program.
