Thompson v. Conwell

This case involves conflicting applications for a grazing lease on state school lands consisting of Section 16, Township 34 North, Range 113 West of the 6th Principal Meridian, in Sublette County. A prior lease held by Margaret E. Conwell, appellee, expired and she applied for a new lease at the old rental of five cents per acre. Appellants, Robert V. Thompson and James A. Greenwood, Jr., also applied for a lease on the same section, offering ten cents per acre. The Commissioner of Public Lands, Ben D. Cossman, made a decision recommending to the Board of Land Commissioners that a lease be issued to Thompson and Greenwood, who made the higher offer, except that if Mrs. Conwell should meet the offer of Thompson and Greenwood, then the lease should be issued to Margaret E. Conwell, who was the old lessee. Appellee did meet the higher rental offer. Upon appeal to and after a full hearing by the Board of Land Commissioners, it notified the parties that it had considered the preferential right of the old lessee; that it further considered that the old lessee had not failed to make payments promptly, had not abused or misused the land; and that it was the unanimous decision of the Board that the Commissioners decision be upheld and the lease be issued to Margaret E. Conwell.