Public land question?

[Red Cabin]

On the plat book I see private land, county land, USA land, State Of MN land. There is also land labeled State In Trust, Does that mean it is public or private property?

[Jackpine Rob]

If the property is in Sections 16 or 36, you are looking at School Lands. Those are lands the State holds to help finance education. They are public lands. The State does lease out timber rights and mineral rights on some parcels to generate income.

[Bowfin]

The State is selling some of their land. Sometimes if someone purchases contract for deed it can be listed State in trust for someone else. I'd call the DNR region lands and minerals to ask specifically.

[Red Cabin]

Thank You, I'll give them a call.

[minnowdangler71]

I also have a question- is there anywhere online to view a plat book? and if it is listed as state land, can a person go and hunt it?

[Bowfin]

Many Counties are getting, or in the process of getting, County parcel GIS layers on their county web sites. The good ones I've seen have ownership boundaries laid over aerial photos. You can click on a parcel and find out who owns it and see the approx boundary by looking at the photos.

[Bear55]

I would also suggest the County websites, they are a great tool and sometimes have much better aerial photos then the stuff you find online.

I would suggest picking up a plat book if you can, even looked for a used one if you are only interested in public land. The GIS is great but on some of them you have to click each parcel to find out the owner, if you are hunting for public land that could take forever to define the borders.

I like to use my plat to find an area of public land, then go the GIS sites to print our aerial photos with the property lines to define the exact outline of the public land.