A federal judge on Tuesday promised a ruling on a motion to end a dispute between the Vicksburg Warren School District and the owners of land on Davis Island, formerly attached to Mississippi and now attached to Louisiana.

The Davis Island Land Co. sued the local school district more than two years ago, saying the district had treated about 100 acres of the island as school-owned while it was really owned by the land company.

The arguments presented by Ken Rector of Vicksburg representing Davis Island Land Co. and Jim Chaney of Vicksburg representing the school district were not only about historic land, they could have been historic themselves.

Davis Island is named for the family of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, who lived there, and the federal court session was in the courtroom of the Crawford Street postal building. Built in 1935, the structure is being phased out by federal judges who are moving to new facilities in Natchez in 2004, meaning the case is among the last federal matters to be heard in the city.

The hearing dealt with a motion for a declaratory judgment on what federal statute of limitations applies to the land company’s case and whether its limit had expired.

U.S. District Court Judge David Bramlette III said he planned to rule on the motion soon, “certainly within a month and maybe within two to three weeks.”

Rector said the statute of limitations issue was raised by the State of Mississippi through Secretary of State Eric Clark’s office.

The land company or a predecessor had had a 99-year hunting and fishing lease on 640 acres of the island that expired in 1989 or 1990. In 1988, the school district obtained a survey of the section from the late E.C. Burkhardt and in 1990, the land company obtained the first of three, five-year hunting and fishing leases.

Davis Island was contiguous with Mississippi until a course change by the Mississippi River, and it is still part of this state. Few traces are left of the days when it was Hurricane and Brierfield plantation land, owned by Joe Davis and his brother Jefferson in the mid-1800s. The land is now a wildlife and timber preserve.

The owners sued in 2000, saying Burkhardt’s survey was faulty and included about 100 acres in the school section that is actually owned by the land company. Subsequently, the school district cut timber on the section, including the disputed acres.

Rector told Bramlette his client contends the first act violating his client’s ownership rights happened when Burkhardt’s survey was filed and continued with the first lease and subsequent leases and the cutting of the timber. Depending on which statute of limitations Bramlette rules applies, that could mean all acts are covered or only the most recent lease and the timber cutting.

“Our position is the statute of limitations is a good defense, Chaney said, responding to Rector’s argument.

He said the school district believes there was a single act, the filing of the survey in 1988, that started the time limit. Therefore, he said, the suit is barred.