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UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE DISCONTENT ON THE RANGE: UNCOVERING THE ORIGINS OF PUBLIC GRAZING LANDS POLITICS IN THE INTERMOUNTAIN WEST A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY By MATTHEW ALLEN PEARCE Norman, Oklahoma 2014 DISCONTENT ON THE RANGE: UNCOVERING THE ORIGINS OF PUBLIC GRAZING LANDS POLITICS A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY BY Dr. Sterling Evans, Chair Dr. Robert Rundstrom Dr. Ben Keppel Dr. Susan Marshall Dr. Warren Metcalf © Copyright by MATTHEW ALLEN PEARCE 2014 All Rights Reserved In Memory of Stuart J. Hilwig ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Rangelands and dissertations have much in common. Both require a significant amount of time to navigate. Both also have their fair share of dangers, whether they take the form of a rattlesnake, a split infinitive, or an ardent defender of a particular range claim. Surviving these hazards demands individuality and companionship. Writing a dissertation can be as lonely as traversing a sagebrush plain, but the process is full of watering holes, colleagues, and close friends that can help one stay on the trail. Traveling across the western range requires money as well as water, and I am grateful to the financial support provided by the Department of History, Graduate College, and Graduate Student Senate at the University of Oklahoma. Grants and fellowships provided by the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming, the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies at Brigham Young University, the Oklahoma Chapter of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, and the Wyoming State Historical Society further sustained this project. If the range is full of stories, as this dissertation suggests, than the research institutions and librarians who keep them are the region’s most valuable resource. The American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming became a second home for much of the summer of 2012 and in particular, I must thank Rick Ewig, Ginny Kilander, John Waggener, Rick Walters, and the Center’s entire staff for their generosity, assistance, and hospitality. J. Wendel Cox, Bruce Hanson, and others deserve thanks for making the Denver Public Library’s Western History and Genealogy Department among my favorite places to do research. Michael Maher and Heidi Englund of the Nevada Historical Society extended their library’s hours for me during some crucial iv days of my research of Senator Patrick McCarran’s papers. Jacquelyn Sundstrand and her staff in the Special Collections and University Archives Department of the University of Nevada-Reno deserve special recognition for scanning the maps found in Chapter Four. Polly Armstrong of Stanford University Libraries helped me navigate Bernard DeVoto’s papers. I must also thank the special collections staffs of the Stephen H. Hart Research Library at the Colorado History Center, Merrill-Cazier Library at Utah State University, and Stewart Library at Weber State University. Although I am a historian, my roots are in the western range and I am grateful for the assistance from individuals who have made their living managing that landscape. Tristram Post, my former supervisor on the Rio Grande National Forest, exposed me to forest range management and encouraged me to think about its historical applications. Dario Archuleta, Guy Blackwolf, Gale Bustillos, Gary Snell, and Lisa Van Amberg contributed further to this atmosphere on the Rio Grande, as did Tom McClure, Linn Pettijohn, and many past and present employees of the White River National Forest. Special thanks also to Dave Bradford, Bob Mountain, and the entire Region 2 crowd at the annual meetings of the Society for Range Management. I hope this dissertation lives up to their expectations. I also appreciate the assistance I have received from fellow scholars and scientists within academia. Numerous faculty of the University of Oklahoma have helped me in this project, whether it was in teaching me how to write, commenting on my dissertation, or needing a dog-sitter. Thank you to Paul Gilje, Richard Hamerla, Albert Hurtado, Cathy Kelly, Ben Keppel, Warren Metcalf, and Robert Rundstrum. Thanks also to Susan Edinger Marshall at Humboldt State University for serving as the v external member on my dissertation committee. I also appreciate the many range scientists and historians who have helped me, whether it was providing valuable comments or offering a place to stay while on the research trail (and sometimes both). Special thanks to Paul and Ellen Bonnifield, Mark Fiege, Kris Havstad, Robin Pinto, William Rowley, George Ruyle, Nathan Sayre, Jim Sherow, Jay Taylor, and Marsha Weisiger. Finally, just as every ranch needs a good foreman, every young scholar requires a mentor. I have been blessed to have had many during my educational career. Rich Loosbrock, Ed Crowther, John McDaniel, and the late Stuart Hilwig guided me as an undergraduate at Adams State College (now University). At the University of Oklahoma, Donald Pisani and Sterling Evans have shepherded this project from its origins to the pages presented here. I appreciate Don for pushing me to consider the political and legal implications of my research. I am grateful to Sterling for allowing me to continue pursuing my interests in range management and history, which occasionally required us to embark upon an epic western road trip or take a brief sojourn in search of tortas or chicken fried steaks. I appreciate both of them for their sound advice and good cheer and I look forward to our crossing paths again. Close friends and family have sustained my work throughout. Special thanks to the Chigley Mansion cohort, especially Jeff Fortney, David Jonsson, Doug Miller, Bryan Reindfleisch, Rowan Steineker, Michele Stephens, Julie Stidolph, and Emily Wardrop. Brandi and Josh Hagemann (as well as puppies Ginger and Anabelle) deserve recognition for opening their house to me on many occasions and becoming close friends in the process. Meanwhile, the Big Bend gang—Matt Bahar and Dave vi Beyreis—were the best friends a guy could have during graduate school. Happy trails to you all and may there be additional river float trips in our future! Along with my friends, my family provided sound moral and financial support throughout my education. Sometimes they only got to see me if I needed a resting place during my research. Thank you to Mom, Dad and Julie, Tom, Heidi, Hallie, and Jim Jammer for all their love. And special thanks to Summer for giving me the extra push I needed at the end of the trail. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: A Range of Stories ................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Finding the Range ................................................................... 12 Chapter Two: A Science for the Range ......................................................... 46 Chapter Three: Confronting the Grid ............................................................ 83 Chapter Four: The National Domain ............................................................. 124 Chapter Five: New Deal Cattleman ............................................................... 171 Chapter Six: Graziery Under Fire .................................................................. 211 Chapter Seven: Graziery Triumphant ............................................................ 253 Chapter Eight: Planning for a “Landgrab” .................................................... 301 Conclusion: The “Great Land Grab” of 1947 and the Emergence of Modern Public Rangeland Politics ........................................ 338 Bibliography .................................................................................................. 354 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1 Unreserved Public Domain in the Intermountain West and Amount Classified as Partially Useful for Livestock Grazing, July 1, 1933 ............................................................. 131 Table 4.2 Unreserved Public Domain in the Intermountain West and its Estimated Carrying Capacity, July 1933 .......................... 132 Table 8.1 Members of Joint Livestock Committee on Public Lands, 1946-47 .................................................................................. 307 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Geography of the Intermountain West .................................. 16 Figure 2.1 Sampson’s Chart of Plant Succession ................................... 76 Figure 3.1 Map of Mizpah-Pumpkin Creek Grazing District, Montana, 1928 ....................................................................... 109 Figure 4.1 Land Tenure in Nevada, 1926 ............................................... 128 Figure 4.2 Nevada Range Claims, 1929 ................................................. 129 Figure 5.1 Grazing Districts Established Under the Taylor Grazing Act, 1936 ................................................................. 191 x ABSTRACT Recent conflicts between ranchers, environmentalists, and federal range management experts on western public lands are a product of different perceptions of the landscape that crystallized by the middle of the twentieth century. Western stockgrowers depend upon a variety of rangeland ecosystems during the year in order to sustain their animals. By moving livestock from lower to higher elevations throughout the region, however, they often cross several political boundaries. By the middle of the twentieth century, western rangelands lay under a variety of jurisdictions—private, state,