Taylor Grazing Districts in 1937(Opportunity and Challenge: The Story of BLM. DOI, BLM, 1988. Washington: GPO.)
Growing up in the American West, it was only natural to take an interest in the management of public lands, particularly the vast empire of grazing lands. Ranchers had little interest in purchasing all the land, due to the high costs, and efforts to turn the lands over to the states in the 1920's foundered over mineral-rights fights, sheep/cow rancher disputes, and various conservation concerns.
The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 ended the era of granting homesteads, and conclusively-ended the Range Wars of the turn of the century, and brought some organization. It's quite an achievement, really!
It is interesting how Tea Partiers and various right-wing groups have concocted entirely-fictional alternative Western histories about the Feds usurping the roles of the States and private interests. The Feds were there all along. At. Every. Single. Step. You can look it up!
The end of the Oregon standoff provides no end of amusement and instruction, from the Malheur-Refuge-occupier's rage that the Feds had jurisdiction over Federal lands, to Cliven Bundy's appeal for a court-appointed attorney, to wonderment over the ACLU's absence, to puzzlement over the Oath Keepers flaking out, to the absence of FOX News, to desperation over the lack of marijuana on the high desert of Oregon. At every step, they exposed an inability to grasp their real situation, and an ignorance of the real history of the American West.
Both these Taylor Grazing Act history links are useful:
Taylor Grazing Act of 1934:
Effects of the Taylor Grazing Act in Wyoming:
The Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 ended the era of granting homesteads, and conclusively-ended the Range Wars of the turn of the century, and brought some organization. It's quite an achievement, really!
It is interesting how Tea Partiers and various right-wing groups have concocted entirely-fictional alternative Western histories about the Feds usurping the roles of the States and private interests. The Feds were there all along. At. Every. Single. Step. You can look it up!
The end of the Oregon standoff provides no end of amusement and instruction, from the Malheur-Refuge-occupier's rage that the Feds had jurisdiction over Federal lands, to Cliven Bundy's appeal for a court-appointed attorney, to wonderment over the ACLU's absence, to puzzlement over the Oath Keepers flaking out, to the absence of FOX News, to desperation over the lack of marijuana on the high desert of Oregon. At every step, they exposed an inability to grasp their real situation, and an ignorance of the real history of the American West.
Both these Taylor Grazing Act history links are useful:
Taylor Grazing Act of 1934:
The first grazing district (Rawlins), was established in Wyoming on March 20, 1935; others soon followed. By June 1935, over 65 million acres had been placed in grazing districts. All the established grazing districts are still in effect today.
Effects of the Taylor Grazing Act in Wyoming:
Meanwhile, homesteading—the claiming, improving and finally the acquisition of full title to relatively small plots of federal land for farming or grazing—continued. In 1914, private land still made up only about 16 percent of the state. In 1916, Congress expanded the amount of land a person could claim to include a full square-mile grazing homestead. As a result, the amount of private land doubled in the 1920s in Wyoming as nearly 10 million acres passed from federal into private hands. Private land by the end of the decade made up about 40 percent of the state.
In 1926, Wyoming Congressman Charles A. Winter, a Republican, began pushing for transfer of federal lands in all the western states to those states, and spoke repeatedly on the subject in Congress and around Wyoming. In 1927, the Wyoming Legislature unanimously passed a resolution in favor of cession. In 1928, Winter ran for the Senate against Democrat John B. Kendrick, the incumbent, a longtime stockman who had first come up the trail from Texas in the 1880s. Kendrick opposed the cession idea, and won the election.
Still, the idea seemed to gain power. In 1929, President Herbert Hoover proposed ceding 190 million acres of federal grazing to the states, 17 million of those in Wyoming, but with the federal government retaining the mineral rights. He appointed a committee. After many hearings the panel proposed cession of grazing lands to states that would accept them, but with the federal government retaining mineral rights, and retaining also all federal forts, forests, parks, monuments, reservoirs and bird refuges.
Congress started work on a bill that included these provisions, and allowed the states to sell the land at $3 per acre and lease lands that weren’t sold. The proceeds would help fund education.
Still, the stock raising interests were unable to unite behind the proposal. Wyoming Wool Growers President Tom Cooper of Casper testified that $3 per acre was too high. Others, Senator Kendrick among them, said the mineral rights needed to be included as well. In 1933, Kendrick introduced a bill that would have included the mineral rights with the ceded land. It failed. Kendrick died soon afterward. Wyoming’s new senator, Joseph O’Mahoney, introduced a similar measure but it failed as well.
Meanwhile, Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, took office in January 1933 and immediately launched his New Deal proposals to a heavily Democratic Congress. National politics had shifted dramatically.
No comments:
Post a Comment