St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company v. St. Paul Water Commissioners; Minneapolis Mill Company v. Same

Citations

• 168 U.S. 349
• 18 S. Ct. 157
• 42 L. Ed. 497
• 1897 U.S. LEXIS 1730

Syllabus

<p>The rights of riparian owners of land situated upon navigable rivers are to be measured by the rules and decisions of the courts of the State in which the land is situated, whether it be one of the original States or a State admitted after the adoption of the Constitution.</p> <p>The Mississippi is a navigable river at all the points referred to in the records in these cases.</p> <p>The grants made to the plaintiffs in error by the acts of February 26, 1856, and February 27, 1856, of the legislature' of the Territory of Minnesota, to maintain dams and sluices in the Mississippi River, etc., etc., were subject at all times to the paramount right of the public to divert a portion of the waters for public uses, and to the rights, in regard to navigation and commerce existing in the General Government, under the Constitution of the United States; and under those grants the plaintiffs in error, took no contract rights which have been impaired in any degree by the acts of the legislature of Minnesota respecting the public waterworks of the city of St. Paul.</p>