30 U.S.C. § 72 (2024)

This is the official text of 30 U.S.C. § 72 (2024), part of Federal (US Code)’s United States Code — the codified general and permanent federal statutes of the United States, organized into more than 50 numbered titles by subject.

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Preference right of coal mine entry; acreage limitation

Official statutory text

Any person or association of persons severally qualified, as provided in section 71 of this title, who have opened and improved, or shall open and improve, any coal mine or mines upon the public lands, and shall be in actual possession of the same, shall be entitled to a preference right of entry, under section 71 of this title, of the mines so opened and improved: Provided, That when any association of not less than four persons, severally qualified as provided in section 71 of this title, shall have expended not less than $5,000 in working and improving any such mine or mines, such association may enter not exceeding six hundred and forty acres, including such mining improvements.

(R.S. §2348.)

Editorial Notes

Codification

R.S. §2348 derived from act Mar. 3, 1873, ch. 279, §2, 17 Stat. 607.

Executive Documents

Indian Lands Excepted

See note set out under section 71 of this title.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.