Texas General Land Office

The General Land Office's main role is to manage Texas's publicly owned lands, by negotiating and enforcing leases for the use of the land, and sometimes by making sales of public lands. Royalties and proceeds from land sales are added to the state's Permanent School Fund, which helps to fund public education within the state. The agency is also responsible for keeping records of land grants and titles and for issuing maps and surveys of public lands. The agency also manages federal disaster recovery grant funding. Since 2011 the GLO has managed The Alamo in San Antonio. The management of The Alamo was transferred to the General Land Office after allegations of mismanagement were directed at the prior manager, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. ==History==

The Congress of the Republic of Texas established the General Land Office on 22 December 1836 (making the GLO the oldest existing Texas public agency). The agency's constitutional purpose was to "superintend, execute, and perform all acts touching or respecting the public lands of Texas." Since its establishment the agency has been located in Austin, although a relocation to Houston was briefly attempted during the Texas Archive War. One former home of the GLO, the Old Land Office Building, is a registered historic place and now serves as the Texas State Capitol Visitor Center. When the State of Texas was annexed into the United States in 1845, it kept control of all of its public lands from its time as a sovereign state. As a result, Texas is the only public land state in the US to control all of its own public lands; that Texas was in the unique position of owning territory out to three leagues (9 geographical miles which is nearly exactly 9 nautical miles, 10.35 statute miles, 16.66 km) from its coastline (significantly more than the three geographical miles controlled by other coastal states). All of these lands (and the oil and gas deposits beneath them) are managed by the General Land Office. ==Texas Land Commissioner==

The head of the General Land Office is the Texas Land Commissioner, a statewide public official. Since a 1972 constitutional amendment, Texas state-wide officers–including the Commissioner–have been elected every four years, prior to which they were elected every two years. The current land commissioner is Dawn Buckingham, who was elected on 8 November 2022. ==See also==