Purpose: To adjust the boundaries of the Santa Barbara National Forest and to set aside a portion of land for eligible veterans of World War One.
Date: September 30, 1925
(Original document available here)
Whereas, it appears that the public good will be promoted by excluding certain areas from the Santa Barbara National Forest, in the State of California, and restoring the public lands subject to disposition therein to entry by ex-service men in advance of the general public in accordance with existing law; and
Whereas, it appears that certain lands immediately heretofore forming a part of the Santa Barbara National Forest within the State of California, should be transferred to and made a part of the Angeles National Forest, in California;
Now, therefore, I, CALVIN COOLIDGE, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the power in me vested by the Act of Congress approved June fourth, eighteen hundred and ninety-seven (30 Stat., 11 at 34 and 36), entitled, “An Act Making appropriations for sundry civil expenses of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, and for other purposes”, do proclaim that the boundaries of the Santa Barbara National Forest are hereby changed and that they are now as shown on the diagrams hereto annexed and forming a part hereof; and that this proclamation and that changing the boundaries of the Angeles National Forest, which I have also signed this same day, are made and are intended to be and shall be considered as one act to become effective simultaneously.
And I do further proclaim and make known that pursuant to Public Resolution No. 29 of February fourteenth, nineteen hundred and twenty (41 Stat., 434), as amended by Public Resolutions Nos. 36 and 79 approved January twenty-first and December twenty-eighth, nineteeen hundred and twenty-two, respectively (42 Stat., 358, 1067), it is hereby ordered that the public lands in the excluded areas, subject to valid rights, shall be opened only to entry under the homestead and desert-land laws by qualified ex-service men of the war with Germany, under the terms and conditions of said resolutions and the regulations issued thereunder, for a period of 91 days, beginning with the 63rd day from and after the date hereof, and thereafter any of said lands remaining unentered will be subject to appropriation under any public land law applicable thereto by the general public. Subsequent to the date hereof and prior to the date of restoration to general disposition as herein provided, no rights may be acquired to the excluded lands by settlement in advance of entry, or otherwise except strictly in accordance herewith.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington this 30th day of Sept. in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and twenty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and fiftieth.
Citation: The Statutes at Large of the United States of America from December, 1925 to March, 1927
The Coolidge Foundation gratefully acknowledges the volunteer efforts of Lisa Sullivan who prepared this document for digital publication.
This proclamation is part of a historical transition by the US federal government and Republican policy. It exhibits a shift from previous land and water conservation policies, which leaned on federally managed land-use in commercial enterprises such as the US timber industry, to expanding private ownership that could operate productive American lands and resources with commercial and personal benefits. The proclamation demonstrates that the ideas of how to use and manage US forestland evolved in the 1920s—from an earlier Rooseveltian vision of the US government’s protecting millions of acres of American forestland for public benefit (including allowing commercial logging to continue on federally managed, public forest lands) to opening more land up to private industry through the government’s selling of some public forestland for private and commercial uses (logging, grazing, ranching, homesteading, recreation, etc.). In particular, this proclamation shows an additional benefit of offering public forest lands to show public appreciation and support for WWI military veterans through private land ownership.