CHAPTER
11
WHOSE LAND?
W Iith 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, m o r e recently have found themselves victors in the federal courts. Those w h o 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
