Executive Order 2670—Lighthouse Service—Virgin Islands

Whereas, the maintenance of lighthouses and other aids to navigation in the Virgin Islands, West Indies, is necessary for the safe navigation of the waters thereof by the vessels of the Navy and of the merchant marine of the United States, and for the promotion of their commercial interests. Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, by virtue of the authority in me vested, and pursuant to Section 1 of the Act approved March 3, 1917, entitled An Act to provide a temporary government for the West Indian Islands acquired by the United States from Denmark, etc., do hereby order that all the public property of the former government of the Virgin Islands ceded heretofore to the United States, consisting of lighthouses and the public lands adjacent thereto and used in connection therewith, to the extent of five acres, or thereabout, adjacent to each lighthouse, when practicable to obtain so much, the exact location of said land and its metes and bounds to be hereafter determined and defined by the Lighthouse Service, light vessels, lighthouse tenders, beacons, buoys, seamarks and their appendages, and all apparatus, supplies, and materials of all kinds provided therefor, and all the archives, books, documents, drawings, models, returns, and all other things appertaining to any lighthouse establishment maintained by the said former government of the Virgin Islands, be and hereby are taken for the uses and purposes of the United States; and the Secretary of Commerce, through the Commissioner of Lighthouses, is hereby charged with all administrative duties relating to the said lighthouse service; and said Secretary of Commerce shall have estimates prepared by the Commissioner of Lighthouses and submitted to Congress for an appropriation to defray the expenses of the establishment and maintenance of these aids to navigation. WOODROW WILSON THE WHITE HOUSE, July 20, 1917.