Tribal Trust Land Status in Morrison County, Minnesota

A different case than the one next door: fee-to-trust, not a boundary dispute

Morrison County's land-status story has nothing to do with the 1855 Treaty reservation-boundary dispute playing out in neighboring Mille Lacs County. Instead, it concerns a specific federal process called fee-to-trust: a tribe applies to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) under 25 U.S.C. 5108 and its implementing regulations at 25 CFR Part 151 to have land it already owns in fee (ordinary private ownership) converted into federal trust status, which removes it from the local property tax rolls and shifts jurisdiction toward federal and tribal authority for many purposes. The Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe first applied to place 24 parcels -- more than 3,200 acres -- located in Richardson and Leigh Townships, on Morrison County's eastern edge, into trust on December 15, 2015.

The BIA approved that application in March 2017. Morrison County and the affected townships appealed administratively, and the Interior Board of Indian Appeals (IBIA) upheld the approval in September 2023. Rather than stopping there, the county filed its own federal lawsuit in 2024 seeking to overturn the IBIA decision and remove the land from trust status, arguing the agencies failed to fully evaluate the financial and jurisdictional consequences and that the process was unlawful, unconstitutional, and biased.

Dismissed, then appealed: where the case stands now

On November 26, 2025, U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel dismissed Morrison County's lawsuit. The county did not let the matter rest there: as of early-to-mid 2026, Morrison County and two of its townships are appealing that dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Their central argument in the appeal is a bias claim -- that the fee-to-trust approval process was compromised because the Mille Lacs Band pays the salaries of Bureau of Indian Affairs Solicitor's office staff who process trust-land applications, which the county contends undermines the fairness and independence of federal review of its own case.

For a buyer, the practical bottom line is that this ~3,238-acre trust designation is not settled: it has already survived one lawsuit, but remains under active appeal at the federal appellate level as of this review. Land in or near Richardson and Leigh Townships should be checked individually rather than assumed to carry -- or not carry -- trust status based on this case's outcome so far, since an Eighth Circuit reversal, however unlikely a buyer might judge it, is not off the table while the appeal is pending.

Why this matters even if your parcel is nowhere near the disputed 3,238 acres

County officials have been explicit about their core concern: trust status removes land permanently from the county and township tax rolls, and 3,200-plus acres is a meaningful loss of tax base for two rural townships specifically. That's worth understanding as context even for land elsewhere in the county, because it signals the county's institutional posture -- Morrison County has shown it will litigate future fee-to-trust applications it disagrees with, not simply accept BIA determinations. Anyone buying land adjacent to, or within, Richardson or Leigh Township, or land that might border other Mille Lacs Band holdings elsewhere in the county (the Band holds land in several counties beyond Mille Lacs County itself, including Morrison), should ask directly whether a parcel is fee or trust land, not infer it from a general reservation map -- these Morrison County trust parcels are not part of any reservation boundary and would not appear on a map of the 1855 Treaty area.

What to check before treating a parcel here as a standard purchase

1. Confirm with the Morrison County Assessor whether a specific parcel near Richardson or Leigh Township is currently on the county tax rolls (fee land) or has been removed (trust land) -- the assessor's office is the most direct, current source for a parcel's actual tax status regardless of what a map or older listing shows.
2. For a federally certified trust-status determination, contact the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Midwest Regional Land Titles and Records Office, the office of record for trust and restricted land titles across Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Iowa.
3. Ask a real estate attorney or title company specifically how they underwrite title near a parcel affected by a pending federal appeal over its trust status -- this is a materially different situation than an ordinary title search and should be flagged before you're under contract, not after.
4. Don't assume this case's outcome one way or the other: as of this review it has been dismissed at the district court level but remains on appeal, so land status for the specific 24 parcels involved could still change depending on the Eighth Circuit's ruling.
5. If considering land elsewhere in the county, ask Land Services directly whether any other Mille Lacs Band fee-to-trust applications are pending for Morrison County parcels -- this 2015 application is the one currently in litigation, but it is not necessarily the only one the Band has filed or could file in the future.