Washington State Miner

Tom

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has released an update on the new Mineral & Land Records System (MLRS). The update contains a number of useful links within the MLRS system, information about key features of the system, and a short video that illustrates what you can do online.

Please read the February update bulletin from BLM at the link here.

Tom

The interactive claims map is now operational on the MLRS website. Instructions for using the map appear on the lower part of the web page below the map image. The initial view is very wide. You can use the "+" button in the upper left corner of the map to zoom in, and drag the map with your mouse to position it over your area of interest.

The image at the top of this post (Click on it to enlarge it.) shows that portion of the Similkameen River just west of Oroville, Washington. The areas with red diagonal lines are those with active mining claims. If the lines slant down to the left, the area has active placer claims. Lines slanting down to the right indicate areas with active lode claims. Most of the highlighted areas shown on this map are a quarter section (160 acres) in size.

For this post, I elected to highlight areas with active claims. You can also highlight areas with closed claims or areas with both.

Clicking the "i" button on the right-hand side of the map creates a "?" icon. If you drag this icon over one of the lined areas and click, a report box will pop up at the left-hand side of the map. This box has scroll arrows in the bottom right-hand corner that allow you to step through the different mining claims in that area of the map. The listing includes both active and closed claims and shows information about each. See the image below. (Click on it to enlarge it.)

When I used it to get information for this post, the application was sluggish in preparing a map to print. The rest of it worked fine.

My suggestion is to play around with the map to get familiar with what each of the controls does. And have fun!