§ 32. — Lease of lands within park.
[Laws in effect as of January 24, 2002]
[Document not affected by Public Laws enacted between
January 24, 2002 and December 19, 2002]
[CITE: 16USC32]
TITLE 16--CONSERVATION
CHAPTER 1--NATIONAL PARKS, MILITARY PARKS, MONUMENTS, AND SEASHORES
SUBCHAPTER V--YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK
Sec. 32. Lease of lands within park
The Secretary of the Interior is authorized and empowered to lease
for a period not exceeding twenty years, at an annual rental to be
determined by him, to any person, corporation, or company he may
authorize to transact business in the Yellowstone National Park,
separate tracts of land, not exceeding twenty acres each, at such places
not to exceed ten in number to any one person, corporation, or company,
in said park as the comfort and convenience of visitors may require for
the construction and maintenance of substantial hotel buildings and
buildings for the protection of stage, stock, and equipment.
Such lease or leases shall not include any of the geysers or any
objects of curiosity or interest in said park, or exclude the public
from free and convenient approach thereto, or include any ground within
one-eighth of a mile of any of the geysers of the Yellowstone Falls, the
Grand Canyon, or the Yellowstone River, Mammoth Hot Springs, or any
object of curiosity in the park; nor shall such lease convey either
expressly or by implication any exclusive privilege within the park,
except on the premises held thereunder and for the time therein granted.
Every lease made for any property of said park shall require the lessee
to observe and obey each and every provision in any Act of Congress,
every rule, order, or regulation made or which shall hereafter be made
and published by the Secretary of the Interior concerning the use, care,
management, or government of the park, or any object or property therein
under penalty of forfeiture of such lease, and shall be subject to the
right of revocation and forfeiture, which shall therein be reserved by
the Secretary of the Interior.
The provisions of this section are not to be construed as mandatory
upon the Secretary of the Interior, but the authority herein given is to
be exercised in his sound discretion.
(Aug. 3, 1894, ch. 198, 28 Stat. 222; June 4, 1906, ch. 2570, 34 Stat.
207; Mar. 2, 1907, ch. 2518, 34 Stat. 1219.)
Codification
The first paragraph of this section is from act June 4, 1906, as
amended by act Mar. 2, 1907, which changed the authorized term of
leasing from ten years to twenty years as set out above. It superseded
earlier provisions covering similar matter contained in the first
sentence of act Aug. 3, 1894.
The second paragraph of the section is from act Aug. 3, 1894, which
contained a further proviso that ``persons or corporations now holding
leases of ground in the park may, upon the surrender thereof, be granted
new leases hereunder, and upon the terms and stipulations contained in
their present leases, with such modifications, restrictions, and
reservations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe'' which has
been omitted as temporary and executed.
A further provision that ``so much of that portion of the act of
March third, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, relating to the
Yellowstone Park as conflict with the act, be and the same is hereby,
repealed'' and the portion of the act March 3, 1883, referred to in such
provision, have been omitted from the Code, the last named portion
having been superseded by the Acts cited to text.
Section Referred to in Other Sections
This section is referred to in section 33 of this title.
