United States v. Midway Northern Oil Co.

The bill avers, in substance, that defendants subsequent to March 1, 1910, entered upon the N. W. % of section 32, township 12 N., range 23 W., S. B. M., which was then, and ever since has been, the property of plaintiff, and on June 6, 1910, discovered therein petroleum in paying quantities; that on September 27, 1909, the President regularly withdrew said land and the whole thereof from mineral exploration, and from all forms of location, settlement, selection, filing, entry, or disposal under the mineral or nonmineral public land laws of the United States, and reserved the same for public uses, to wit, in order to secure a supply of fuel oil for the use of the navy, and that since said last-mentioned date none of *803 said land lias been subject to exploration for minerals, or to the initiation of any right under any of the public land laws of the United States. That defendants are now extracting vast quantities of mineral oil and petroleum from said lauds, and committing waste and trespass thereon to plaintiffs’ irreparable injury, and that defendants are so doing under the pretense that they have acquired valid mineral rights therein, by virtue of their entry upon said land…