Section originally began with the words “when any land or other” preceding “property”. The words, “land or other”, were deleted on the basis of act February 20, 1931, which provided, “that hereafter no real estate of the War Department shall be sold or disposed of without authority of Congress, and all existing Acts or parts thereof in conflict with this proviso, other than special Acts for the sale of stated tracts of land, are hereby repealed.”

Section is from the first part of section 5 of act June 13, 1902, which was a provision of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act for 1902. The last part of such section 5 is set out as section 631 of this title.

1951—Act Oct. 31, 1951, struck out provisions authorizing the Secretary of the Army to sell the unserviceable property referred to, and authorizing him to direct the transfer of any property employed in river and harbor works; struck out the provision that the property so transferred should be valued and credited to the project upon which it was theretofore used and charged to the project to which it was transferred; and inserted “and is transferred or sold, the proceeds thereof may be credited to the appropriation for the work for which it was acquired”.