# How did the Federal Gov. gain control of public lands? (The BLM) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 13, 2014, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045 "2014-04-13T21:56:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/21 "2014-04-14T12:48:06Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > The Homestead Act didn’t just give out free land willy-nilly. You had to actually live on it and “make improvements” which usually meant farm it. The law actually stayed on the books (IIRC) until sometime in the 1970’s but in reality the last of the even marginally farmable land was homesteaded in the 1920’s. More to the point, though, the small single family farms that the whole homesteading concept is based on were only ever really good for providing slightly more than very basic subsistence, even on good land. > > So even if there still were some halfway decent land left, I doubt there’d be many takers. There is, however, all sorts of worthless desert acreage in private hands that can be had for cheap if you simply must join the landowning class. I believe that’s the whole point of this dispute. There’s not enough rain/wellwater/good soil to sustain farming; but like many deserts, some of it’s enough to grow clumps of grass here and there. So this makes it cheap grazing land, provided it’s not overgrazed. However, the ranchers don’t need to own the land to graze on it, the arrangement was more open. There were wide areas where everyone shared the land, and if you rotate the herds and limit their size, it doesn’t stress the land. From what I read on the news, it sounds like a number of ranchers let their cattle graze, and the BLM has to check brands to see if they’re getting the cattle that aren’t being paid for. Plus, the amount of land offered under the homestead act was for normal farms, not for grazing large herds on marginal lands. So grazing use did not fall into the “improvement” category enough to take ownership of the land, and paying a fee or sharing a right to use vast otherwise unused land was sufficient for the locals and the feds until recently. And as others have pointed out, unlike other areas of the USA, the federal government “owned” all the land in the west thanks to taking ownership (Louisiana Purchase et al) before the states were created, rather than after. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/22 "2014-04-14T12:53:51Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Informative thread – thanks to all. > > I’m interested on hearing more about what aceplace noticed: that sometime after the settlement of Kansas, for leftover public land after homesteading, emphasis shifted from _state_ ownership to _federal_ ownership. > > Perhaps due to the Civil War increasing the practical power of the federal government, especially to keep states in check? Or maybe because the thinner settlement of the desert West made for a smaller tax base, so state governments preferred to not have to manage large tracts? Like **Freddy the Pig** said, the agricultural land in those states was good enough that there _weren’t_ huge swaths of leftover land. If there had been, the federal government would have owned it, just like in the western states. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/23 "2014-04-14T13:02:57Z")
I’ve been looking through the thread and I still don’t see the answer to the OP. Why didn’t the Federal government turn ownership of that land over to the state. We’ve answered why it wasn’t Homesteaded but why didn’t the Feds give up their land to the State of Nevada when it was formed and instead retained ownership. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/24 "2014-04-14T13:21:07Z")
State ownership vs. fed ownership of land is in [this table.](http://www.nrcm.org/documents/publiclandownership.pdf) Kansas: 0.3% owned by feds, 0.6% owned by state. Nevada: 81% owned by feds, 0.1% owned by state. So, yes, there is an obvious overall difference (later-admitted, more arid states have much more government land), BUT there is also a fed/state difference (later-admitted, more arid states also have proportionately more FED land, as opposed to STATE land). I’m thinking my “tax base – how much land can a state manage” suggestion might be the main reason for this. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/25 "2014-04-14T13:27:18Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I’ve been looking through the thread and I still don’t see the answer to the OP. Why didn’t the Federal government turn ownership of that land over to the state. We’ve answered why it wasn’t Homesteaded but why didn’t the Feds give up their land to the State of Nevada when it was formed and instead retained ownership. I’m not sure you’d find any single answer. It’s likely a state-by-state set of reasons. But if I had to venture a guess at the sweet spot: 1. Inertia. Feds run it, what the hell. 2. Cost. States don’t want to pick up whatever cost is involved in the transfer/management 3. Economics. What use there IS of the land - timber, mining, grazing, et al - is managed for cheap by the feds. A change to state handling - where states have a greater incentive to make it pay due to the inability to produce more currency themselves - would increase fees and dislocate some sweet deals. Those with the sweet deals would oppose this occurring. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/26 "2014-04-14T13:29:19Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I’ve been looking through the thread and I still don’t see the answer to the OP. Why didn’t the Federal government turn ownership of that land over to the state. We’ve answered why it wasn’t Homesteaded but why didn’t the Feds give up their land to the State of Nevada when it was formed and instead retained ownership. The short answer is simply that they didn’t have any reason to. Keep in mind that statehood usually came very early in the homesteading process. The only thing the newly-formed state governments would have wanted to do with most of the land was get people settled on it, and the federal government was already doing a great job of that. A far better job than a tiny and newly formed state government would have. It wasn’t until decades and decades later that anyone really considered that the land would be a permanent government asset requiring management. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/27 "2014-04-14T13:35:03Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > …It wasn’t until decades and decades later that anyone really considered that the land would be a permanent government asset requiring management. Excellent point. During the formation of most western states, it was more “who can handle the settling/transfer to private ownership of this land best?,” not “who can eventually manage the land that will always be public best?”. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/28 "2014-04-14T13:35:15Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > State ownership vs. fed ownership of land is in [this table.](http://www.nrcm.org/documents/publiclandownership.pdf) > > Kansas: 0.3% owned by feds, 0.6% owned by state. > Nevada: 81% owned by feds, 0.1% owned by state. > > So, yes, there is an obvious overall difference (later-admitted, more arid states have much more government land), BUT there is also a fed/state difference (later-admitted, more arid states also have proportionately more FED land, as opposed to STATE land). > > I’m thinking my “tax base – how much land can a state manage” suggestion might be the main reason for this. No, the point is that there’s NO land in Kansas that’s government owned just because nobody wants it. The reason why there’s any government-owned land at all in Kansas is because the government needs it for a specific purpose. Obviously the government of the State of Kansas has more need for facilities in Kansas than the federal government and therefore they own more land. It’s completely separate situation from talking about who owns all the empty land in a place like Nevada. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/29 "2014-04-14T13:41:34Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > I’ve been looking through the thread and I still don’t see the answer to the OP. Why didn’t the Federal government turn ownership of that land over to the state. 😕 Why on earth would they? Land is valuable! The Louisiana Purchase cost more than a year’s worth of government spending at the time. The Mexican War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo were insanely expensive. Those costs were paid by the feds, by the taxpayers in all the states. Why give up the land to a single state??? Small portions were given over to states, most notably through the Morrill Act for the funding of state universities. But that created a benefit available to all states, not just new ones, and theoretically at least benefited the entire country by raising education levels. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/30 "2014-04-14T13:53:12Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Note that there were other systems similar to homesteading. E.g., both sets of my grandparents got land that was to be newly irrigated thanks to a program for WWI vets. Went from sagebrush to lush green farms in a decade. A lot of tales like that: the government helping people to settle and own former government land. When practical. Yeah, one of the responses of the federal government to the closing of the homestead era was to go on a wild spree of building dams all across the West in the 30’s through the 50’s to try to create more arable land for folks to settle on. For the most part, these big irrigation projects were total failures, or at least they failed to get more small homesteaders on the land. Sometimes it was due to hydrological or other practical problems, but for the most part the problem was that by that time, and especially after World War II, Americans simply didn’t want to be small yeoman farmers anymore. It’s a very hard and primitive life by modern standards. Some of the programs at that time offered veterans and others _better_ than free land, with subsidized loans and equipment, but the take rate was still very low. A lot of those big irrigation projects did help out post-war industrial scale agriculture, and the hydro-power that was originally just supposed to be a fringe benefit turned out to be hugely important in some places. But the West is also littered with completely useless dams that were built because of some lingering attachment to Thomas Jefferson’s idea of the country of small farmers. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/31 "2014-04-14T14:23:08Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > I’m not sure you’d find any single answer. It’s likely a state-by-state set of reasons. But if I had to venture a guess at the sweet spot: > > 1. Inertia. Feds run it, what the hell. > 2. Cost. States don’t want to pick up whatever cost is involved in the transfer/management > 3. Economics. What use there IS of the land - timber, mining, grazing, et al - is managed for cheap by the feds. A change to state handling - where states have a greater incentive to make it pay due to the inability to produce more currency themselves - would increase fees and dislocate some sweet deals. Those with the sweet deals would oppose this occurring. Various states [have actually been trying to regain control](http://www.hcn.org/issues/44.8/western-legislatures-grab-for-control-of-public-lands/print_view) of federally administered lands for some time (essentially, once the feds had done the hard work of making them useful for grazing). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/32 "2014-04-14T14:36:29Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > No, the point is that there’s NO land in Kansas that’s government owned just because nobody wants it. The reason why there’s any government-owned land at all in Kansas is because the government needs it for a specific purpose. Obviously the government of the State of Kansas has more need for facilities in Kansas than the federal government and therefore they own more land. It’s completely separate situation from talking about who owns all the empty land in a place like Nevada. Okay…I think we actually agree on everything, we’re just answering slightly different questions. What you say here is certainly true, but I was interested in the decisions that were made from the start – meaning, starting when each of these states was still a territory, and ALL the land was “federal” (save the odd non-American private inholdings, like those Spanish grant lands around Santa Fe, and of course all of Oklahoma was meant to be Indian land). In other words, my “how much land can a state manage” is basically synonymous with your “how much land does any one state need.” ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/33 "2014-04-14T14:59:17Z")
In Canada, there was a similar pattern. The federal government bought Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory from the Hudson’s Bay Co in 1870. When the three Prairie provinces were created, the federal government kept the land, so it could control western settlement, including financing the CPR and homesteading. The difference from the US, though, is that once the provinces were established and settled, they began to pressure Ottawa for the land to be turned over to them. It took years of political wrangling and some court cases, but in 1930 the Feds turned over the bulk of the lands to the three provinces, keeping only the land it needed for a clear federal purpose. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/34 "2014-04-14T15:17:57Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Okay…I think we actually agree on everything, we’re just answering slightly different questions. What you say here is certainly true, but I was interested in the decisions that were made from the start – meaning, starting when each of these states was still a territory, and ALL the land was “federal” (save the odd non-American private inholdings, like those Spanish grant lands around Santa Fe, and of course all of Oklahoma was meant to be Indian land). > > In other words, my “how much land can a state manage” is basically synonymous with your “how much land does any one state need.” I don’t think anyone’s really saying that the states couldn’t handle management of the land if it had been handed over to them. I’m simply disagreeing with your idea that there was a shift sometime around the Civil War from the state governments managing public land to the federal government doing it. That shift did happen, but it happened earlier when the country started moving away from land claimed by the original 13 states. The higher proportion of state-owned lands in Midwestern states versus Western states is simply a reflection of there being less open land for the feds to manage. (Although somewhat complicating that picture is that the northern Midwestern states do have fairly large state land holdings, but those were generally despoiled timber land that that state acquired for nothing or practically nothing after the logging companies had moved on, not land given directly by the feds for the states to manage.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/35 "2014-04-14T15:33:54Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Its not surprising why most of Nevada is not populated. Its . . . . . . desert. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/36 "2014-04-14T15:38:11Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > I don’t think anyone’s really saying that the states couldn’t handle management of the land if it had been handed over to them. I’m simply disagreeing with your idea that there was a shift sometime around the Civil War from the state governments managing public land to the federal government doing it. That shift did happen, but it happened earlier when the country started moving away from land claimed by the original 13 states. Yes indeed, the shift happened during the 1780’s. May I emphasize, the argument between state and federal control of the public domain was a huge, **huge** issue in putting the “United” in “United States”. It was the primary reason why it required four years (from 1777 to 1781) to ratify the Articles of Confederation. Some of the Original 13 had extensive claims in the West (then defined as the region between the Appalachians and the Mississippi), and some didn’t. If allowed to stand, these claims would exacerbate the existing differences in size and wealth among the states. The non-endowed Original 13 argued that these claims should be ceded to the federal government, which would (a) strengthen the Union by giving the country a common interest in the West; (b) eliminate overlapping state claims; and (c) give the federal government a source of revenue. Maryland refused to ratify the Articles until all the states agreed in principle to cede their trans-Appalachian claims. (Moving from principle to practice required another 30 years.) The Confederation Congress then passed the [Northwest Ordinance](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Ordinance) to survey and eventually sell the northern part of the new federal domain. This was one of the most important laws in American history. Among other things it banned slavery in the new territory. It occurred too late the solve the Confederation’s financial problems; that requied a new Constitution with federal taxation. But the principle of federal control of the territorial domain had been established. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/37 "2014-04-14T15:48:45Z")
Prior to the National Environmental Policy Act and the Endangered Species Act and any number of other laws and interpretations of laws that have hamstrung the agencies, the federal government was pretty good at managing land at the local level. The States trusted that the feds would act the same way in the future and it didn’t work out. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/38 "2014-04-14T20:03:10Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > Informative thread – thanks to all. > > I’m interested on hearing more about what aceplace noticed: that sometime after the settlement of Kansas, for leftover public land after homesteading, emphasis shifted from _state_ ownership to _federal_ ownership. Actually, this is a false perception. When Kansas became a state in 1861, the feds did own most of the state, and they did NOT turn it over to the new state government. What did happen was that the federal government operated land offices through the state, where settlers could buy land or claim it through the Homestead Act (and the feds also turned over vast swathes to the transcontinental railroads, who in turn had their own land offices). In the 1870s and 80s, huge portions of Kansas transferred directly from the feds to private ownership. The major difference between Kansas and Nevada is not some perceived different emphasis, but the fact that Kansas is mostly farm country, where yeoman farmers could make a living on 160 acres (at least back then). By the end of the 19th century, virtually all of the federal land in the state had been purchased or claimed. What’s left is mostly the military bases, national monuments, and other special-purpose areas. In Nevada, the feds couldn’t sell all the land because it wasn’t suitable for 160-acre farms, and they basically got stuck with the leftovers. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/39 "2014-04-14T20:25:20Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > The Homestead Act didn’t just give out free land willy-nilly. You had to actually live on it and “make improvements” which usually meant farm it. The law actually stayed on the books (IIRC) until sometime in the 1970’s but in reality the last of the even marginally farmable land was homesteaded in the 1920’s. More to the point, though, the small single family farms that the whole homesteading concept is based on were only ever really good for providing slightly more than very basic subsistence, even on good land. > > So even if there still were some halfway decent land left, I doubt there’d be many takers. There is, however, all sorts of worthless desert acreage in private hands that can be had for cheap if you simply must join the landowning class. Yeah, you can buy it for as cheap as $100 a acre. look at "land’ on ebay for some ideas. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045/40 "2014-04-14T20:39:35Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Yeah, you can buy it for as cheap as $100 a acre. look at "land’ on ebay for some ideas. Well, right, that’s my point. If the government suddenly reinstated the Homestead Act, it’d still be much easier to buy some super-cheap piece of (privately-owned) desert off eBay than taking up the government’s offer of “free” land you had to homestead on to get. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-federal-gov-gain-control-of-public-lands-the-blm/686045.md?page=3)