(1) The Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund, hereinafter called the “board,” shall establish and maintain a public land office to be located at the seat of government of the state, in which office shall be deposited and preserved all records, surveys, plats, maps, field notes, and patents, and all other evidence touching the title and description of the public domain, and all lands granted by Congress to this state, or which may hereafter be granted, for whatever purpose the same may be given.

(2) The board shall have custody of, and the department shall maintain, all the records, surveys, plats, maps, field notes, and patents and all other evidence touching the title and description of the public domain.

(3) The board shall draw all deeds and conveyances and deliver the same for all sales and transfers, and other disposition of the public domain, that may from time to time be ordered and made by authority of law, and keep a true and faithful record of the same. The board shall keep accounts of the several grants or donations for fixing the seat of government, for seminaries of learning, for common schools, for internal improvements, or for any other purpose, in separate books, accounts, and reports, so that the rights and interests of one shall not be blended or mixed with the rights and interests of another; and each class of land shall pay the expenses of locating the same.

(4) The board shall, in behalf of this state, receive from the Treasury of the United States the 5 percent on sales of the public lands, or any other sums accruing from the general government to the seminary, common school, internal improvement, or land acquisition funds; and shall pay the same into the treasury of this state, or, if they shall belong to a fund, to the treasurer of such fund keeping the same separate and distinct under their respective proper heads. The board shall hold all needful correspondence with the several land offices of the United States in this state, or with the general land office at Washington, and shall attend the public land sales in this state, and visit the said land offices whenever, in its opinion, the interest of the state shall require it, and do and perform all things needful and proper to advance and promote the interests of the same.

(5) The board shall make selections of and secure all swamp and overflowed lands and any other lands inuring to the state under the several acts of Congress providing therefor, and shall provide plats or maps of all lands selected and secured, and append thereto an accurate description of the quality, situation, and location of the same, and whatever else may affect the value of each tract or body of land selected and secured, taking care to keep in separate books, and maps or plats, the lands belonging to each separate fund, which books and maps and plats, with the description thereof, shall be kept and preserved in the office of the board.

(6) Upon the discontinuance by the federal authorities of the office of surveyor-general for the state, the board shall receive all of the field notes, surveys, maps, plats, papers, and records heretofore kept in the office of said surveyor-general as part of the public records of its office, and shall at all times allow any duly accredited authority of the United States full and free access to any and all of such field notes, surveys, maps, plats, papers, and records; and may make and furnish under their hands and seal certified copies of any or all of the same to any person making application therefor.

(7) The board shall keep a suitable seal of office. An impression of this seal shall be made upon the deeds conveying lands sold by the state, by the Board of Education, and by the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Trust Fund of this state; and all such deeds shall be signed by the trustees or their agents as authorized under s. 253.431, making the same and impressed with the seal and are operative and valid without witnesses to the execution thereof; and the impression of such seal on any such deeds entitles the same to record and to be received in evidence in all courts.

(8) The fees of the board in the following matters shall be as follows: certification under seal of copies of maps or records in the office will be performed for a fee of $1.50 minimum. The charges for copying, making record searches, and compiling reports and statistical data shall be commensurate with the work involved and cost of material used.

History.—s. 1, ch. 63-294; ss. 27, 35, ch. 69-106; s. 1, ch. 74-18; s. 9, ch. 79-65; s. 3, ch. 82-185; s. 2, ch. 2013-152; s. 7, ch. 2016-233.