A History of Duchesne County

Whose land

CHAPTER 11 WHOSE LAND? WI ith the complexities of an ever-changing society, yesterday's maligned and mistreated are sometimes the winners in today's court battles. Ute tribal members, having been the losers in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century land disputes, more recently have found themselves victors in the federal courts. Those who came and homesteaded the county at the govern­ment's invitation in 1905 had no idea of the problems later genera­tions would face over land and jurisdictional issues. However, these issues are far from the only ownership and land use concerns facing county residents. As the nation's land and natural-resource policies have evolved since the Great Depression, the same government agen­cies that were established with policies to promote development now create polices that seem to many county residents to limit the use of federal lands to specifically mandated and increasingly restrictive ways.1 As populations increase throughout the region and state, so too does tension over land use. The differing land users feel that their own opinions and views are correct and others are wrong, archaic, or 367 368 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY misinformed, leading to increasing polarization of groups and view­points. Battle lines have been drawn for new range wars, and ownership and control over the land and other resources are being challenged on several fronts.2 Replacing the shootouts of the past century's range wars, lawyers now are hired to fight land and other natural-resource battles in courts of law. In addition, lobbyists have been hired to lobby state and federal politicians, hoping to sway lawmakers to their points of view. The trend of the last decade has been to create envi­ronmental legislation in the courtrooms rather than in state and fed­eral capitol buildings. There are some extreme environmentalists trying to stop ranch­ers from using public land for grazing; others want more limited grazing use of the land or for ranchers to pay higher permit fees. Environmentalists employ a myriad of state and federal rules and laws-wilderness acts, antiquities acts, wetlands acts-to try to pro­tect and control the land, alienating long-time residents and other users of the land who feel that they are better able to manage the land or that they are entitled to continue using what they have worked to develop. There also are other more radical political groups who have purchased land in Duchesne County in the belief that American soci­ety will break down soon and that the isolation of the county will provide them some security as they reorder their society. Many county residents want to see the archaeological wonders of Nine Mile Canyon preserved and protected from vandals, but many of these centuries-old remnants of past cultures are on private land. These and other contending interests are at work in the county, and their interests raise a number of questions. Should a government agency step in and oversee Nine Mile? Who should control and man­age the land presently owned by the Ute Tribe-the tribe? the Bureau of Indian Affairs? What role do the terminated Utes play in the con­trol and development of Ute lands and resources? And, most signifi­cantly of all, who owns and/or controls the land that was once set aside as a reservation for the Ute Indians by President Abraham Lincoln but which was later opened for homesteading. WHOSE LAND? 369 Federal, State, and County Lands With a population of fewer than 13,000 individuals in the county, and with 72 percent of the county being public land managed or controlled by the federal government, many county residents often feel they have little voice in the direction and management of much of their county. State legislator Beverly Evans explained: "Most local people are distraught. They have concerns over land use and feel that they haven't had access or input on multiple use issues. The bureau­cracy allows little input when federal planners over-ride local con­cerns." Evans lamented, however, that many of her legislative colleagues have the attitude, "We don't care about what the Uinta Basin wants, we'll do what is good for Utah," and their concept of Utah is often only the Wasatch Front.3 At present, about 77 percent of Utah's population resides in urban areas, primarily in Utah, Salt Lake, Weber, and Davis counties. There has been a huge shift from the rural agricultural lifestyles of our parents and grandparents to the urban lifestyles of present times. In the last two generations most Utahns have moved from farms to urban centers, echoing a national trend. The once-traditional values and uses of land have come into question by even Utah city-dwellers, especially as they have come to have an increasing interest in recre­ational use of the land. The trend increasingly has been to preserve public lands for mul­tiple- use purposes, including hiking, sightseeing, camping, catch-and- release fly-fishing, and other non-consumptive uses. This trend greatly affects hunting, grazing, timber, oil exploration and produc­tion, and mining uses of the land in Duchesne County. The nation­wide trend is against these extractive uses of public land. This is the opinion not just of Utahns but of people nationwide, who feel they should have as much say in what occurs in western lands as the people who live there, because such lands are in the public domain and are the property of all Americans. As the population of the state increases, coupled with increasing numbers of tourists who come to the state and county, the debates about land use will continue to increase. In the 1970s and 1980s there was a strong movement called the Sagebrush Rebellion that was led 370 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY by Nevada and joined by Utah and other western states. Although this movement was not successful in shifting ownership and control of federal lands to the states, it centralized and brought into focus for many westerners the issues at hand. A central issue is, Who will deter­mine how public land in the West and in Duchesne County will be used: those who have made a living from it for several generations or those who want it preserved to be used only in non-consumptive ways?4 Duchesne County officials are concerned with these questions and want a voice in land use issues in the county. That voice has solidified in recent land-use planning. After almost two years of meetings and discussions by county officials, involved citizens, and state and federal agency representation, the Duchesne County General Plan was finalized in 1995. In it the county's objectives on policy and economic growth are clearly outlined. Of primary concern are public land management, recreation, and tourism questions. On the issue of public lands-both federal and state-the county's objectives include: active county participation in the federal and state planning process, county support for maintaining public multiple-use land-management practices, participation by county leaders in public land classification and use designations, and finally, strong county support for "no net increase" of public land within the county.5 These objectives clearly demonstrate that county officials and a majority of residents desire to have a strong voice in the poli­cies and management of the land within the county and that they wish to stop, or at least slow down, the increasing federal manage­ment of land and resources in the county. One of the focal points of use and control of federal lands that impacts Duchesne County is grazing. Duchesne County cattlemen voice concerns over this issue and most county residents, with their roots closely tied to the land, believe that multiple-use concepts should include grazing. Since the nineteenth century, cattlemen and sheepmen have grazed their herds on public lands. Nearly a century ago most of the large ranchers in the county owned only a small por­tion of the land they used to graze their livestock. Due to concern with watersheds and the overgrazing and deterioration of land in the West, Don B. Colton and others encouraged a better system of graz- WHOSE LAND? 371 ing on public land through the establishment of local grazing dis­tricts. From this came a better-managed grazing program on public lands using the grazing permit system common today. The movement of the past few years to rid federal lands of cattle and other livestock is almost beyond comprehension to most county livestock growers. Although movements to ban grazing with the slo­gans "No Moo in 92" and "Cattle Free in 93" have failed, similar efforts by environmentalists continue. Arguments posed by those wanting to rid federal land of stock vary by degrees. Some desire to restore a more pristine land to provide more homeland for natural species. Others move a step farther in their arguments, claiming that cattle are hard on delicate ranges and destroy many species of flora, which in turn negatively impacts natural fauna species. Some think that the cattle destroy the riparian lands, those delicate lands along streambanks and lakes; and others go so far as to believe that the flat­ulence and belching of cattle are creating too much methane, one of the elements destroying the ozone layer of the earth's atmosphere. Cattlemen have a hard time accepting most of these challenges to their way of life and livelihood.6 The Peatross Ranch in Strawberry and Avintaquin provides an example of a county cattleman caught in this conflict. When William Peatross began expanding his ranch in 1942, he purchased seven original homesteads. The homesteaders' animals had overgrazed the land so badly that the lower Avintaquin property would only support thirty cow/calf units during the summer months. Currently William's son Kent runs about 250 cow/calf units on the same land and cuts over 100 tons of hay each summer. In addition, the land supports between 600 and 800 deer for six weeks each spring on sprouting alfalfa, and more than 100 elk pasture there in the fall. In the 1940s and 1950s there were very few deer and almost no elk along Avintaquin Creek, as there was too little feed to support them. For more than fifty years the Peatross family has worked on the riparian lands along Avintaquin Creek and Strawberry River at their expense, knowing it was vital to their own interests to develop and improve the land for grazing purposes. In recent years, however, they have had their fences cut and stock watering troughs destroyed by vandals who think cattle on public lands are damaging the forest and 372 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY land. Kent Peatross said of the situation: "There is so much federal land around us we are dependant upon the multiple use of it. The environmentalists are out of touch with how we use it. We are healing the land from the abuses of the past."7 At present there are sixty grazing permits, varying in number of cow/calf units from fifteen to fifty, given to stockmen in Duchesne County on U.S. Forest lands. The present cost of the permits are two dollars per cow/calf unit per month.8 To many this seems far below market value-and it may be. However, Duchesne County cattlemen maintain that they not only graze cattle on public lands but also develop the land and springs for their cattle, which has assisted the habitat, allowing expansion of large game such as elk. Prominent area cattle rancher and high school teacher Brent Brotherson explained this position: Most of the decisions are made on emotion by those who want to lock-up land for their own use. If they relied on science it allows room for grazing, timber, mining, as well as recreation in the mul­tiple use concept. Lots of grazing lands are in better shape today than 100 years ago. We've had land in the area for three genera­tions now and the range is better now than when my grandparents homesteaded. Wildlife has also benefited. There are far more deer and elk now because of improved range.9 In the last few years the number of laws and restrictions that apply to land use and ownership have greatly increased. Many feel that even these restrictions are barely sufficient to protect archaeo­logical sites as well as flora and fauna species from further destruc­tion. Others see the many laws as an effort to restrict their freedom and use of the land and its resources. Since 1931, when the U.S. Forest Service designated the High Uintas Primitive Area, there has been concern over the management of public lands in the county. The primitive area encompassed more than 240,700 acres. In 1964 Congress passed the Wilderness Act. Its stated purpose is to secure some federal lands in order to provide "for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness."10 Twenty years later, Congress passed the Utah Wilderness Act of 1984 that set aside thousands of WHOSE LAND? 373 acres of roadless national forest land in the state, including much of the area known as the High Uintas. These laws prohibit motorized vehicles from entering lands designated as wilderness. They, of course, are not popular with mining and timber users of the national forest, who feel restricted by the federal laws and mandates. Other federal laws which restrict land use include the Wetlands Act, discussed previously. This law restricts how wetlands can be developed by private landowners. The Endangered Species Act passed in 1973 is a move by the federal government to protect animals and plants from extinction-certainly a laudable motive. Among its pro­visions, any new construction site must provide one-half mile clear­ance to a raptor nest. Oil drilling south of Myton was halted for a time because the potential migratory routes of mountain plovers may have been disturbed by the drilling rig.11 Construction activities also may be halted to allow for environmental impact studies to ensure that construction activities will not harm any endangered species. Some extreme environmentalists believe that the dams on Uinta Basin rivers should be removed, among other reasons, to restore orig­inal river flows to protect endangered fish species. The razor-backed sucker, bony chub, and Colorado squawfish are all endangered fish species that are found in the Green and Duchesne rivers. Environmentalists argue that these species are dependant upon an unrestricted water flow in the spring for spawning and that humans need to consider other creatures and the established ecosystem as a whole. Hunting rights (or privileges, as some view them) are also being challenged by animal-rights groups throughout the nation. As one of the best hunting regions of the state, these concerns over land use impact the county. Presently the hunting population is a very small percentage nationwide. In Utah less than 10 percent of the popula­tion took out a license to hunt deer in 1990. Again, if the lands are to be controlled by the voice of the majority, whose concerns and rights should control federal land: the majority of those who live in the region or the majority of the nation as a whole? Another concern of the hunting population of the county is the rapid rise in the number of hunters from the Wasatch Front coming to the area to hunt. In the last few years the Division of Wildlife Resources has drastically 374 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY reduced the number of regions for open bull elk hunts. The Uinta Mountains is the best and largest open bull hunt region left in the state. This has attracted thousands of hunters to the area, which has angered and frustrated many county residents who have felt that their interests and concerns have not been taken into account. There are acts mandated by the federal government which are not totally funded by the federal government. Such acts force areas like Duchesne County to raise taxes to comply with their provisions. The Clean Air Act and the Pure Water Act are two examples. The pur­poses of these acts are laudable, but they often have negative ramifi­cations on the county's economy. For instance, the Environmental Protection Agency succeeded in closing down the Pennzoil Refinery in Roosevelt because of its failure to comply with clean air standards. The owners simply could not afford to meet new regulations and keep the refinery profitable. As a result, the county lost over 150 of its best-paying jobs; yet no one can argue with the desirable concept of having clean air. What is the proper balance between families' liveli­hoods and environmental issues? Many county officials as well as members of the state legislature representing voters of the county at times despair over how to deal with these issues. Any attempts to impose new and stricter regula­tions anger constituents with opposing points of view, yet to uphold and protect the status quo alienates and angers large numbers of vot­ers who are demanding change. Ignoring the issues and passing no new legislation angers all sides. From a political point of view it is seen as a no-win situation. Radicals on both sides of the issues-envi­ronmentalists on one side and ultra-conservatives on the other-feel their own points-of-view are right and that legislation should be implemented to protect their interests. Finding a consensus seems impossible, and finding compromises is difficult. These efforts will be important in the coming years. Nine Mile Coalition A major concern of many in the county is protecting the fragile cultural elements of the county's very early residents. In Nine Mile Canyon is found some of the best archaeological evidence of the Fremont culture. The many pictographs and petroglyphs on the WHOSE LAND? 375 canyon walls fires the imagination of many and causes all who see them to wonder about the people who drew them and lived in the region centuries ago. The Nine Mile rock art panels have been called the "longest art gallery in the world." In addition to the rock art, there also are many structures and caves used by the prehistoric people. In addition to the prehistoric artifacts found in the canyon, there are many historic sites, including the Nutter Ranch, homesteaders' cabins, the Price-Fort Duchesne stage route, telegraph poles, a tele­graph relay station, and late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century graffiti-names of wagon freighters written with axle grease. Many of the archaeological and historic sites are being vandalized or are slowly disintegrating due to the lack of care and protection from the natural elements provided them. A number of the prehistoric and historic cultural sites also are found on private land and therefore are not protected by federal or state laws. The loss of pottery, tools, and other cultural artifacts to pot hunters and others is incalculable. As greater numbers of people become aware of Nine Mile Canyon, due largely through the promotion of the area by regional travel councils, the cultural sites are threatened even more. There are no public facilities of any kind in Nine Mile Canyon for the public. Although the area is somewhat isolated, many feel that the canyon's cultural sites should be preserved and interpreted for the public. In 1991 discussion was initiated by the Duchesne County Historic Preservation Committee on the possible preservation of Nine Mile Canyon. The Duchesne County Historical Preservation Committee was organized in September 1991 under the direction of the Duchesne County Commission. The author, John D. Barton, was elected chairman of that committee; H. Bert Jenson was appointed chairman of the Nine Mile Canyon Committee. From that small beginning, a much larger Nine Mile Canyon Coalition developed whose goal is to preserve as much as possible the scenic wonders and cultural sites in Nine Mile Canyon for study and enjoyment by future generations. In January 1993 the Nine Mile Canyon Coalition was formed with the support of the Moab and Vernal districts of the Bureau of Land Management, Duchesne County, Carbon County, Utah State University, the College of Eastern Utah, the Ute Tribe, and various 376 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY historic organizations, tourism councils, chambers of commerce, and private citizens. It was proposed that a study be conducted on the fea­sibility of trading private land containing cultural sites for land of similar or greater grazing and ranching value in Argyle Canyon. All archaeological and historic sites in the canyon would then be man­aged and protected by the BLM.12 State and county governments are concerned in their interactions with federal agencies that control land that there be no net loss of additional lands, and no net loss of pri­vate land would occur under terms of this proposal. If the Nine Mile Coalition is successful, the canyon's scenic and historic past will be better preserved. Businesses also may offer concessions and services for the many interested visitors to the canyon. If not, at the present rate of destruction, much will be lost forever and landowners, angered by abuse and trespass of their property, will make access to the cultural sites ever more difficult. A County Divided Land and water issues, legal jurisdictions, the definition of mem­bership in the Ute Tribe, and federal land policies have divided the residents of the county during the last quarter of the twentieth cen­tury. Among the two most serious of these issues that have caused confusion, mistrust, anxiety, fear, lawsuits, hefty legal expenses, and economic and educational boycotts among various groups of county citizens are the ownership and management of assets between mixed-and full-blooded Utes and the question of the legal jurisdiction on the Uintah Indian Reservation. The roots of these two issues are found in laws passed by Congress and policies established by the Ute Tribe since the passage of the Dawes Act more than a hundred years ago. As discussed in an earlier chapter, the Dawes Act and subsequent congressional acts passed around the turn of the twentieth century allotted lands on the Uintah and nearby Uncompahgre reservations to Indian families, placed thousands of acres in a national forest reserve, set aside hun­dreds of acres for reclamation projects, and opened the balance of the land on the two reservations to non- Indian homesteading and min­ing. In 1934 Congress passed the Wheeler-Howard Act (the Indian WHOSE LAND? 377 Reorganization Act) which formally ended the allotment of Indian land in the West and reconstituted Indian tribes and reservations. Reconstituted Indian tribes adopted their own constitutions and defined membership in their tribes. In 1937 the Ute Indian Tribe wrote its own tribal constitution and established eligibility for mem­bership in the Ute Tribe, which generally meant one had to be at least 1/8 Indian by blood heritage. Membership eligibility in the Ute Indian Tribe was limited to persons of Indian blood whose names appeared on the census rolls in 1935 and children born to any mem­ber of the Ute tribe who was residing on the reservation at the time of birth. The tribal constitution gave power to the tribal business com­mittee to prepare ordinances covering future membership require­ments. On 27 May 1953 the Ute Tribe passed Resolution 600, which changed membership eligibility requirements; the tribe now stipu­lated that one must be one-half Indian to be a member of the Ute Tribe.13 That same year Congress enacted Public Law 280, which attempted to end or terminate federal assistance and involvement with several Indian tribes. The act called for the ending of Bureau of Indian Affairs involvement in the lives and affairs of individual Indians and tribal governments. Health, education, and other services once provided by the federal government to the Indians were now to be the responsibility of state and county governments. The act was aimed at mainstreaming Indians into the non-Indian society. Tribal resources could either be divided and distributed to the members or the tribe could form a corporation and divide the assets of the tribe by means of stock certificates issued to tribal members. A year later, members of the tribe voted to terminate and remove from tribal rolls all former members with less than one-half Indian blood. There were 490 mixed-blood Utes as well as fifteen full-blood Utes who accepted termination, leaving about 1,500 tribal members on the Ute roll. The Ute Tribe then adopted as membership qualifi­cations the present "5/8 plus a drop" as well as the need for the mem­ber to live on the reservation. Those membership qualifications remained until 1984, when Haskel Chapoose, a full-blood Ute who had married a non-Indian and had children, sued the tribe for discrimination against his half- 378 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY blood children. He argued that he was a member of the tribe and that his children should be eligible for all benefits of a tribal member. Chapoose was victorious and the decision opened a window for about 1,500 children of non-terminated Utes to become Ute Tribe members. In 1958 the government's policy of forced termination ended. In the meantime, the terminated Utes had organized, called themselves Affiliated Ute Citizens (AUC), and established their own board of directors to manage slightly more than 27 percent of the assets of the Ute tribe. The AUC organized the Ute Distribution Corporation (UDC) to manage non-dividable assets, particularity mineral, water, oil, and natural-gas resources. Most of the land that the AUC members controlled was located in the Rock Creek and Antelope areas of the county. To manage these assets the AUC formed two other organizations, the Rock Creek Cattle Corporation and the Antelope Sheep Corporation. These two corporations failed within a few years, however, and the assets were sold, with the proceeds going to the members of the AUC. The Ute Distribution Corporation continued to manage the affairs of the AUC. To protect AUC members' assets, no shares in the UDC could be sold or traded until 1964, after which the Ute Tribe was given the right of first refusal to shares of AUC members. In 1956, just two years after the termination of mixed-blood Utes, Congress restored to the Utes the mineral, oil, and gas rights to 36,000 acres of land taken from them by Congress in 1905.14 When oil and gas were found on this land in the 1970s and 1980s hard feel­ings occurred once again between the two groups of Indians. Lawsuits followed as the AUC sued the Ute Tribe over payment of its share of oil and gas revenues. Hunting and fishing rights also were a bone of contention between the two Indian groups. This issue was resolved in 1985 when the Tenth Circuit Court ruled "that mixed-blood Indians retained their own rights to hunt and fish on the reservation." However, those rights were considered "not assets that could be divided fairly" and therefore hunting and fishing rights cannot be passed down to the children of mixed-blood Utes.15 The second issue which divided the county was over jurisdiction WHOSE LAND? 379 on the Uintah Reservation. More specifically, it involves what actu­ally is Uintah Indian Reservation land and who has legal control of activities on the reservation. This issue was raised by the Ute Tribe in 1975 when it sought to exercise jurisdiction over all lands that origi­nally had encompassed the Uintah Valley Indian Reservation. In 1975 the Ute Tribe established its own law and order code. The Ute Tribe filed a suit in U.S. District Court to seek clarification and a resolution to their claim of legal jurisdiction on their land. For the next several years extensive research of historical documents was conducted to find a resolution to this very complex question. While the 1975 suit was being studied, the criminal arrests and convictions of two Indian residents of Myton occurred in the 1980s. Both men appealed their convictions before the Utah Supreme Court, arguing that the non-Indian court system lacked legal juris­diction of their cases because Myton was still part of the Uintah Indian Reservation. The Utah Supreme Court invited the United States Department of Justice to file a brief as a friend of the court because of its involvement with the 1975 legal suit involving reserva­tion boundaries. The court ultimately ruled that Myton was not a part of the reservation and upheld the convictions and sentences. In the Ute Tribe case concerning reservation boundaries, Judge Bruce Jenkins of U.S. District Court for Utah ruled that the Uintah Reservation had not been diminished in 1905. The decision was appealed to the Tenth Circuit Court. At issue was the question of what Congress really intended when it passed the 1902 and 1905 acts which forced the Utes into compliance with the Dawes Act and which returned the "surplus" reservation lands to the public domain.16 During the next decade, the case bounced around in the federal courts, and each time a decision or an opinion was rendered it gave hope to one side or the other. Finally, in 1993 the case was heard by the United States Supreme Court. In its decision the U.S. Supreme Court upheld only part of the state supreme court's earlier ruling that the communities of Roosevelt, Duchesne City, and Myton were out­side the limits of the reservation. The Supreme Court cited the act of 27 May 1902 that provided for allotments of some Uintah Reservation land to Indians, and said that "all the unallotted lands within said reservation shall be restored to the public domain."17 380 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY There remained numerous questions concerning reservation bound­aries, and the Supreme Court asked the lower courts to reexamine these questions. The decisions from the various courts caused further problems and confusion in the county. For instance, on 21 September 1994 Ute students attending Union High School walked out in protest over what they voiced as unfair and prejudicial treatment. District school officials met with Ute tribal leaders to hear their concerns. Ute stu­dents later resumed attending school with no further incident.18 On the positive side of this lengthy legal confrontation which has divided the county, tribal leaders and elected officials from Duchesne and Uintah counties have met to talk and arbitrate issues and con­cerns rather than seek to settle them in the courtroom. For the first time, the Ute Tribal Business Council invited anyone interested to attend and give input in their meeting on 22 March 1994. The leaders of both groups hope that a new era of mutual trust and understand­ing can evolve. Attempts were made by Beverly Ann Evans and other legislative representatives from the Uinta Basin to solve the vexing problem to the county of the state's severance tax on oil and gas. They have been partially successful in the past several legislative sessions to have some of the oil and gas severance taxes deposited in a special Uinta Basin revitalization fund. In recent years this has added up to several mil­lion dollars to be used in the basin.19 With the depletion of Ute tribal funds due to the decrease in oil and gas revenues since 1985 and the doubling of enrolled members, in recent years the Ute Tribe proposed to tax businesses and charge business licenses for those businesses located on what they consid­ered to be tribal land. Tribe officials also proposed billing the Central Utah Project for $33 million for water reclamation projects not com­pleted and for water from the Stillwater Dam the tribe claimed and for which it had not received any compensation. Further, the tribe looked to market its water to the thirsty desert states of California and Arizona.20 In May 1997 the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued what many believe to be a "finality" to the twenty-five-year Ute tribal suit. The court ruled that the Ute Tribe and the federal government WHOSE LAND? 381 retained jurisdiction over all Indian trust lands, the national forest lands, and the Uncompahgre Reservation in Uintah County as well as several categories of non-trust lands that are within the boundaries of the 1861 Uintah Valley Indian Reservation. The court also ruled that state and local governments have jurisdiction over lands removed from the reservation under the 1902 and 1905 allotment legislation, which includes settled communities.21 In June 1997, officials of Duchesne and Uintah counties announced that they would ask for a rehearing of the May decision before the Tenth Circuit Court. Fearing more legal costs to protect their legal gains, the Ute Tribe Business Committee agreed to discuss with the two counties an agreement that it would not impose taxes, hunting or fishing restrictions, or other regulations on non-Indians living on former Indian allotments on condition that the counties would never again litigate the issue of exterior reservation bound­aries. By late summer of 1997 negotiations between the counties and the Ute business committee had broken down. Duchesne County Attorney Herb Gillespie in a letter to the tribal business committee said of the tribe's negotiating position: The tribe's proposal, as we view it, does not give any guarantees against the exercise of tribal authority upon non-Indians which do not already exist under present law. What we sought is guarantees that the tribe will never tax or regulate non-Indians on non-Indian lands even in situations where they may have the right to do so.22 Late in September 1997 Duchesne County and Uintah County lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the appeals court decision of May that upheld the original boundaries of the reserva­tion. The tribal council once again stated that it would not impose jurisdiction on non-Indians living on former Indian allotments if the two counties agreed never again to litigate the question. The coun­ties invited the state of Utah and the city of Roosevelt to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reexamine the boundary issue. Roosevelt City and the state decided that they would not join the appeal but agreed to negotiate with the tribe's business committee. The Supreme Court 382 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY subsequently declined to consider the two counties' petition to rehear the boundary dispute. The response from the two counties after receiving word of the Supreme Court's decision was basically, "We've all had our day in court and now it's time to get together and go forward."23 There remain many issues, including water allocation, mental health, edu­cation administration, and wildlife management, that still need to be addressed and resolved to everyone's satisfaction. Conclusion Duchesne County's history can be seen as a microcosm of the history of the American West. It has included settlement by prehis­toric Indians and later by other Native Americans and white immi­grants, Spanish explorers, lost Spanish mines, mountain men, fur trade forts, an Indian reservation, and a nearby military fort complete with cavalry troops. There have been land rushes and homesteaders, droughts, boom-bust cycles in an extractive-based economy, and legal battles between individuals, the Ute Tribe, and county, state, and federal governments. Each has its own story as part of the larger Duchesne County story. Various groups and individuals have sought control and ownership of the land in the county; control of the land and its resources has been sought as a means to wealth and power. Beginning with the displacement of the early Fremont culture by the Numic-speaking Native Americans and continuing to the jurisdic­tional and federal-mandated policies and issues of today, the central issue has been control of the land. As the county moves into the twenty-first century, these land ownership and/or control questions most likely will be solved, although perhaps not to the liking of all parties. It is quite likely that some solutions will be viewed by some county residents as unfair. Many issues already have been settled, but new concerns will certainly arise. The issues had their beginnings with historical events, and the seeds of tomorrow's issues in the county have already been sown. The harvest of today's history awaits a future historian with the truest and best perspective of all-that of time. WHOSE LAND? 383 ENDNOTES 1. Clyde A. Milner, ed., Major Problems in the History of the American West (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company, 1989), 629. 2. Barry Sims, "Private Rights in Public Lands? The New Range War moves to a Familiar Battleground-The Courts," The Workbook 18 (Summer 1993): 50-58. 3. Beverly Ann Evans, interview with John D. Barton, 30 December 1996, Mt. Emmons, Utah, transcript in possession of the author. 4. See Michael P. Malone and Richard W. Etulain, The American West; A Twentieth Century History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 286-88; and Milner, Major Problems in the History of the American West, 561-73, 654-81. 5. "Duchesne County General Plan," Bear West Corporation in con­junction with Duchesne County, 1996, 2-5. See also Uintah Basin Standard, 6 February 1996. 6. Brent Brotherson, interview with lohn D. Barton, 30 December 1996, Boneta, Utah, transcript in possession of the author. 7. Kent Peatross, interview with lohn D. Barton, 30 December 1996, Strawberry, Utah, transcript in possession of the author. 8. Recreational Information Management Report, U.S. Forest Service, 1994. 9. Brotherson, interview. 10. Public Law 88-577, 88th Congress, 3 September 1964. 11. Uintah Basin Standard, 4 May 1994. 12. "Recreation and Cultural Area Management Plan: Nine Mile Canyon, Special Recreation and Cultural Management Area," (Bureau of Land Management, 1993), 2. 13. Roosevelt Standard, 8 April 1954. 14. Information from Chris Denver. See also Uintah Basin Standard, 30 January 1958. 15. Salt Lake Tribune, 22 October 1997. 16. The only exception was the case Clifford Washington v. Duchesne County. In 1965 attorney George Stewart argued in the Clifford Washington case that the court proceedings were occurring on a reservation and that the court system, being a regular court and not the tribal court, did not have jurisdiction over his client. The case was dismissed without any ruling on the argument. 17. The information on the jurisdiction issue was prepared from mate­rials given the author by Herb Gillespie, Duchesne County Attorney. For more information on the actual Supreme Court ruling see Supreme Court 3 8 4 HISTORY OF DUCHESNE COUNTY of the United States, Syllabus, Hagen v. Utah, Certiorari to the Supreme Court of Utah, No. 92-6281, I-iii. lustice O'Conner delivered the opinion of the Court, in which justices Rehnquist, Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Ginsburg agreed; justices Blackmun and Souter dissented. 18. Uintah Basin Standard, 27 September 1994. 19. Vernal Express, 7 December 1994. 20. Uintah Basin Standard, 2 February 1994; Vernal Express, 9 February 1994. 21. DeseretNews, 9 May 1997. 22. DeseretNews, 1 September 1997. 23. Salt Lake Tribune, 24 February 1998.