CHAP. 198.—An Act Concerning leases in the Yellowstone National Park.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized and empowered to lease to any person, corporation, or company, for a period not exceeding ten years, at such annual rental as the Secretary of the Interior may determine, parcels of land in the Yellowstone National Park, of not more than ten acres in extent for each tract and not in excess of twenty acres in all to any one person, corporation, or company on which may be erected hotels and necessary outbuildings: Provided, That such lease or leases shall not include any of the geysers or other 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 or the Yellowstone Falls, the Grand Canyon, or the Yellowstone River, Mammoth Hot Springs, or any object of curiosity in the park: And provided further, That such leases shall not convey, either expressively or by implication, any exclusive privilege within the park except upon the premises held thereunder and for the time therein granted. Every lease hereafter made for any property in said park shall require the lessee to observe and obey each and every provision in any Act of Congress, and every rule, order, or regulation made, or which may 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 every such lease shall be subject to the right of revocation and forfeiture, which shall therein be reserved by the Secretary of the Interior: And provided further, 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.

This act, however, is 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.

That so much of that portion of the Act of March third, eighteen hundred and eighty-three, relating to the Yellowstone Park as conflicts with this Act be, and the same is hereby, repealed.

Approved, August 3, 1894.

(53d Cong., Sess. II, Chs. 198, 199)