BY TREY GARRISON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GUSTAV SCHMIEGE
PUBLISHED SUMMER 2009

But Creede is no backcountry village. A tiny little Whoville of sorts, Creede boasts a slew of incredible little restaurants, art galleries, and the Creede Repertory Theatre, which has won acclaim from high-minded New York drama critics. The hunting is so rewarding that people wait years to get a permit to stalk elk, moose, and other trophy critters. The fly-fishing on the Rio Grande and its tributaries attracts anglers from around the world. And just four percent of the land in Mineral County is privately owned. The rest is controlled by the U.S. Forest Service.

Enter Al Biernat, a self-made success who worked his way up from bussing tables at the Palm Restaurant in Los Angeles to running the Palm’s Dallas locale as its GM. When a lease came up on a prime piece of Dallas real estate, he signed on the dotted line and created the dining establishment that now bears his name.

Creede was a dream come true—a place of solace, relaxation, and recreation to share with his family and friends—so he and his wife, Jeannie, bought a 30-acre plot in a delicate Alpine zone at 10,600 feet. The land is regulated by the Mineral County Alpine Zoning Commission, and Biernat has a thick stack of regulations to prove it. Everything from the size of structures to the materials he could use is spelled out. Surrounded on three sides by Forest Service land, he believed his cherished investment would be protected from the over development that has plagued other Colorado towns.

Since 2005, Biernat has put a substantial amount of his hard-earned cash into his cabin and the surrounding property. “It seemed the perfect little secret place,” Biernat says. “I had no idea what could be coming.”

But he should have.

Until the mid-1980s, Creede was a mining town, site of Colorado’s last big silver strike. Since then, however, the only miners have been tourists, picking up bits of quartz and the occasional fleck of pyrite (better known as fool’s gold). Biernat was positive this peaceful oasis was immutable.

He was so sure of it that he believed mining could never come back. That’s why he signed his deed, despite a standard print disclaimer and warning right above the signature line stating that he was not buying the patented mineral rights to his land. And yet, from 2007 through the end of 2008, mining returned—exploratory mining for untapped veins of nickel, silver, lead, and gold.

The prospect sent Biernat and a good number of local landowners into a tailspin of worry and doubt. They weren’t just concerned about the light and noise pollution from drilling operations or the heavy truck traffic on narrow, winding passes. Biernat was in a bind because while he owned the surface rights to his property, someone else owned the patented mineral rights. And the implications are enormous.

Different parties often own the surface and the subsurface rights. These interests may have been created through the reservation of the minerals by the government or may result from a decision by a landowner to sell their mineral interests.

Mining claims are initially unpatented claims, which give the right only for those activities necessary to explore and mine. Much as farmers could obtain title under the Homestead Act, miners can obtain a patent (a deed from the government). The owner of a patented claim can put it to any legal use. Bottom line? If extractable ore were found beneath his property, the subsurface rights owner can force landowners such as Biernat to sell.

Beyond that, full-scale mining would shatter the sanctity of the Continental Divide. Biernat’s 1,000-square-foot, loft-style cabin is something out of a Ralph Lauren catalog. It’s cozy, rustic, gorgeously decorated, and at night you get a better view of the stars than the Hubble telescope.

Biernat had planned to build a larger cabin and turn his existing one into a guest house. He had already added a barn-style garage for his truck, his ATVs, and the snowmobiles that are the only way to and from the cabin in winter. Needless to say, the return of mining put an end to Biernat’s construction plans. But to many longtime locals, another possibility loomed:

Was their dream of mining going to come true?

After the closure of the last active mine in 1985, Creede recreated itself as a tourism hub. But tourism is a fickle trade, which even opponents of mining admit. Ed Vita, an ex-techie who moved to Creede to get away from the rat race, owns two businesses in Creede. In the winters he runs San Juan Snowcat, and he owns the popular Old Miners Inn, where you can enjoy a mean pizza and the requisite adult beverage.

We sat outside on the inn’s upstairs deck, and Vita admitted he tentatively supports the return of mining. “It’s all exploratory. Until I see the numbers and the contracts, I’m not counting on anything. I know there will be some impact on the tourist industry, but it can be hard surviving here in the winter months when it’s just the 400 locals circulating the same dollars,” Vita says.

But businessmen like Avery Auger, president of Creede America Group, love the idea of mining coming back to Creede. Creede America is developing custom homes that start in the $300,000 range. Auger is not concerned about mining. In fact, he expects to draw potential buyers from the mining operations, at least from among those in management and high-tech positions that command six-figure salaries. His development overlooks Creede and is protected by an earthen berm that blocks sight and dampens noise. “This town needs this kind of business to grow,” Auger says. “This is only going to increase property values and bring money this town needs.”

Brian Egolf agrees. Egolf first came to Creede with his grandfather when he was only two years old. As years passed, Egolf thought someday he would relocate to Creede permanently. After finding his way he watched the mines close. He swore one day he would reopen them.

Over the last decade, Egolf gathered patented mineral rights for large swaths of land around Creede. A savvy businessman, he knew that the depressed price of minerals wouldn’t last forever and approached Idaho-based Hecla Mining. Egolf wanted Hecla to come to Creede, test the mines, and, if profitable, oversee production.

“I’m really hoping that we can revitalize Creede, so that people can stay and earn a good living and that their children won’t leave as soon as they graduate high school, because there will be opportunities here,” Egolf says.

Hecla’s exploratory plans called for three years of exploratory mining in a 36-square-mile area, an investment of more than $12 million. But when mineral prices declined, Hecla suspended operations. Although it promises to resume exploration in the near future, many in Creede are doubtful it will return anytime soon.

That’s no relief to Biernat, who is still considering a new house, a new well, and solar power. If commodity prices rebound, mining could come back. “Do I put the money in and risk losing my investment?” Biernat asks. “I don’t know.”

Active mining operations around a recreational retreat could drive down property values long before Hecla might acquire Biernat’s cabin. Although it’s appraised at $550,000 right now, it would be worth much less if mining resumed.

When Biernat first saw his land, everything convinced him his investment would be protected. Set in an Alpine zone, it is surrounded by Forest Service land. Brokers emphasized how mining was dead and that the town had been reinvented as a cultural and recreation hub. But unless an area is declared a wilderness, the U.S. Forest Service allows activities on federal land like mining, timber harvesting, and grazing.

To be fair, the fact that Biernat would not own the patented mineral rights wasn’t exactly in fine print. Biernat is a smart businessman and took a risk. And, he admits, despite all his anxieties, he doesn’t think he’d do anything different.

“I knew I was taking a little bit of a gamble,” Biernat admits. “I should have read things more closely. But I’ll be honest. If I could go back and do it again, I would, no matter what the stress and worry has been. Just the memories I built with my children and my wife make it worth it. I just wish I could be sure our investment would be safe over the long haul.”

While some of the specifics of his case are unique to Colorado law, the issue of patented mineral rights is a federal one. From coast to coast and everywhere in between, the potential for profit from subsurface minerals means that if a landowner hasn’t secured those rights, it could place their investment at risk.

Caveat emptor should be every landbuyer’s watchwords, even if they have competent lawyers and erstwhile brokers on their side. Should you find that dream spot, it just may not be possible to acquire the mineral rights to go with the surface estate. At that point, you have to measure the risk, and decide if it’s worth it.

For Biernat, it most definitely has been. But it’s not something he takes lightly. Every time he talks about the issue, you can see the concern etched on his face and the troublesome pall on his otherwise optimistic visage.

“I love that town, I love the fact that it’s an artists’ community, and I love the people,” he says. “It’s taken me so long to really start to fit into the town, and I’d hate to have to leave it. But I’m blessed. I have that option. What about the guy who doesn’t have that choice?”

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It was an ugly experience, but when it concluded the military made two promises: there would be no live-fire exercises at Pinon Canyon, and no additional lands would be taken. Now, a quarter-century later, both promises have been broken.

BY TREY GARRISON
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GUSTAV SCHMIEGE
PUBLISHED DECEMBER 2008

The Army broke its first promise – the no live-fire ban – in 2004. Given the lay of the land, it was a particularly unwelcome decision. The short-grass prairie that blankets Southern Colorado’s arid savannah takes on a tinderbox quality when rainfall is sparse. Not surprisingly, live artillery fire only exacerbates those conditions. That was certainly the case this summer when lightning ignited grass fires on the maneuver site. They quickly spread to neighboring ranches. The burn eventually engulfed more than 40,000 acres.

Two years after the live-fire ban was broken, word got out that the powers that be at Fort Carson wanted to break the Army’s second promise and acquire additional acreage, more specifically, 418,000 additional acres. The land the Army wants is a mosaic of private and federal lands in the Comanche National Grasslands. This time the Army promises there will be no heavy-handed eminent domain proceedings, which makes sense because since 2007 the Department of Defense has been prohibited by Congressional mandate from condemning any private land. But that has not prevented it from seeking “willing sellers.”

The problem? Hardly a soul in southeast Colorado believes the Army any more. The plan to buy from willing sellers looks more like a try at a checkerboard land grab. And, if a recently uncovered 2004 Fort Carson proposal is accurate, it looks like the Army wants a hell of a lot more than 418,000 acres; it wants 7 million. Welcome to Pinon Canyon.

THE LANDOWNERS’ PERSPECTIVE
Mack Louden is one of the leaders in the fight against the Army’s plans to expand the PCMS. It’s cost him a lot – time, money, stress on the home front. But he’s willing to risk everything, because to Louden it’s a fight worth fighting. This summer Louden closed down his feed store, a Trinidad landmark for almost a century. He could run a ranch, a business, or fight the insurgency, but not all three.

“When it comes down to it, this is what’s important,” he told me when I stopped in for a visit a few months ago. He spit into a cup to underline his point. His piercing eyes are at odds with his tired, craggy face, just as he himself seems equally cynical and optimistic. “It’s driving my wife crazy how much of my time this has taken, but no matter what it costs me I’d fight it again if I had the chance.”

The battleground known as Pinon Canyon is desolate country on the east side of the Continental Divide that resembles the barren environs found in much of Iraq and Afghanistan. Generations of ranchers dating all the way back to Charlie Goodnight have tended their herds here. Opponents of the Army’s plans say the 418,000-acre seizure would devastate the local economy. An estimated $20 million a year in agricultural production would be lost, and so would more than 500 ranches.

Lon Robertson is a neighbor of Louden’s. (Neighbor in these parts means he lives only 10 or 20 miles away.) Robertson heads the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition (www.pinoncanyon.com). To him, the proposed expansion is about much more than land. “The impact on this whole region will be monumental. It will be devastating,” he says.

The Department of Defense already owns about 25 million acres of which the Army’s share is 15 million acres. The military says it’s not enough for what it needs. Local ranchers disagree. Their response? Not one acre more. This battle cry has become the name of their legislative action committee.

“This land is not for sale at any price,” Louden says.

THE ARMY’S PERSPECTIVE
Since World War II, Fort Carson has been a Colorado Springs landmark. Located approximately 100 miles away from Pinon Canyon, it is from this base that units are trained at PCMS. The Army says it needs to expand PCMS for a number of reasons, including the 2007 Grow the Army initiative, a program that, in a surprise twist, is designed to do just what its name says. Over the course of the next two years, the Pentagon plans to expand the number of soldiers stationed at Fort Carson from 16,000 to 25,000.

“Changes to unit organization in the past year, upgrades to technology, and a decision to add a fifth BCT (brigade combat team) under Grow the Army have all pushed the doctrinal training land requirements up, not down, at Fort Carson,” says Army spokesman Dave Foster at the Pentagon.

As to why the Army doesn’t use some of the millions of acres it already owns, Foster says part of it is because the terrain isn’t right. There are also cumbersome federal restrictions. But what it really boils down to – and he admits this – is convenience.

“In order to support Fort Carson-based soldiers, other federal lands must not only be suitable and available, they must also be within 200 miles of Fort Carson/PCMS,” Foster says. “If the federal lands are further away than 200 miles, the burden on soldiers and families to use the land regularly for home-station readiness training purposes becomes so great that the Army would be forced to consider realigning units away from Fort Carson and to other installations with closer facilities.

“There are a handful of federal landholdings … that the Army is investigating further, (but) none of these are assured or problem-free. Securing permission from other federal agencies to train on these lands is a lengthy and difficult process.”

Louden’s take on the convenience angle is less than generous: “Yeah, it’s convenient for them. The generals can fly down, observe training and maneuvers, and fly back to Colorado Springs in time to play golf in the afternoon.”

THE REVEAL
There’s a new twist on the saga of Pinon Canyon, one that undermines the Army’s assertion that it only needs a little here and a little there. According to a 2004 study out of Fort Carson titled “Analysis of Alternatives Study: Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, Colorado,” the Pentagon has been planning on acquiring almost 7 million acres in southeastern Colorado, forcing more than 17,000 residents off their land, and establishing the largest military base in the world. The 2004 study states:

… Fort Carson’s Range and Training Land Program (RTLP) Development Plan, September 2003, identified the multi-phased acquisition of 6.9 million acres of land, currently owned by private land owners and the U.S. Forest Service (Comanche National Grasslands), as an option to the use of this land for large-scale, doctrinally sound Joint and Combined military training for units stationed at or deployed to Fort Carson and PCMS. Likewise, an expanded PCMS offers DoD the ability to simulate the situation in the Middle East, complete from deployment, through operations to re-deployment.

This unprecedented acquisition of almost 11,000 square miles of private and public land would result in an operations area larger than Massachusetts. The multi-service battlefield would be more than triple the
size of New Mexico’s White Sands Missile Range, which at 3,200 square miles, is currently the largest military installation in the United States.

Opponents of the expansion say it would decimate the social and economic fabric of southeastern Colorado and destroy the last intact short-grass prairie along the American Great Plains.

The Pentagon’s analysis makes clear that the land acquisition was designed to take place in many phases with the first phase matching almost exactly the Army’s current push for about 100,000 acres next to the PCMS.

“This report also shows that far from compromising its plans, the Army is actually sticking almost exactly to the phased acquisition laid out in this document,” Louden says. “Army assistant secretary Keith Eastin has stated publicly that the Pentagon will be back for more land in the future.”

It’s hard for people to get their head around how much this would affect not just southeast Colorado but much of the Southwest, he says.

“People need to understand the sheer size of this planned land grab and the disastrous consequences of letting the Pentagon get one more acre. The damage to this fragile region and the rare wildlife it supports would be catastrophic,” Louden says. “Ranchers whose relationships with the native grasslands go back many generations would lose their lands and their livelihoods. The region’s family ranching and agriculture-based economy and the communities that depend upon it would be devastated. And a vast trove of historical, archaeological, and paleontological treasures would be lost.”

Jim Herrell, a fellow opponent of the expansion, says the Army’s ongoing pursuit of expansion is a telltale sign of the disconnect between the government and the people it is bound to serve.

“Every level of democracy has voiced its opposition to the expansion of the size and boundaries at Pinon Canyon clearly and repeatedly, yet the Pentagon and its contractors refuse to heed the will of the people,” Herrell says. “Now we see why the Army plans to build extensive facilities and intensify use on the 238,000 acres they already have but have rarely used. The Army got its foot in the door in the 1980s with promises that they’d never be back and there would be no live-fire. Those promises are broken. Letting the Pentagon go ahead with their plan inside and outside the PCMS would open the gate to an unconscionable drain on taxpayers.”

THE BATTLEFIELD
The enormous swath of khaki-colored ranchland in and around Pinon Canyon is environmentally-sensitive short grass prairie. Patchy, protein rich grasses that keep herds fed in the winter are interspersed with the kind of rugged scrub and rocky flatland that also nurtures dust storms. Even today, ruts made by pioneers’ wagons traveling along the Santa Fe Trail a century ago are plainly visible. Imagine what a 67-ton Abrams or an 18-ton Stryker on maneuvers can do, much less the impact of live-fire exercises in a place where lightning strikes spark grassfires that can burn hundreds of acres at a go.

Town and county governments throughout the area – except Trinidad itself — have passed resolutions against the expansion. A bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers pushed through the Colorado Legislature a largely symbolic measure in 2007 condemning expansion plans.

For opponents, the campaign has been one of battles won, campaigns lost, brilliant strategy, lawsuits, and holding tactics. Initially, the Army planned to seize the land through eminent domain, as it did back in the 1980s. The power to condemn private land for public use is nothing new. It’s right there in the last part of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:

“… nor shall private property be taken for public use, without
just compensation.”

But since many Colorado ranchers had been down this road before with the Army, they mobilized immediately and started beating down the doors of their legislators. The fight has been carried on for two years now. The two primary weapons have been legal documents and official filings. In an ironic twist, the Army has been bogged down with all sorts of red tape: studies and statements on environmental effects and historical impact. In 2007, expansion opponents won their first serious victory when Congress banned on any funding for eminent domain or expansion activities. U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO), aided by U.S. Rep. John Salazar (D-CO), pushed the ban through.

At press time, the nation’s largest land grab has been reduced to a stalemate, trench warfare at its finest. Congress has approved the ban for another year, through the end of fiscal 2009. But U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), whose district includes Colorado Springs, wants the expansion. Lamborn has led the effort to allow the Army to circumvent the spending ban by attaching language to the 2009 Defense Authorization Act that allows the solicitation of “willing sellers.”

“The Army believes it can buy the land it needs from willing sellers,” Foster says. “The Army has no desire to assert its condemnation authority, does not feel such authority is needed in this case, and seeks only the ability to buy on the open real estate market like any other organization.”

Opponents say that this is an end around and a dirty trick. They say Lamborn’s maneuver is a checkerboard land grab that would make acquisition of other parcels inevitable by devaluing other ranchlands. Plus, it will intimidate owners, who worry they won’t get as much compensation should eminent domain come later. Live-fire war games and demands for access easements tend to drive down the values. They also spook cattle.

“(Salazar and Musgrave) authored legislation banning all funding for any expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site; a majority of the U.S. House and Senate approved the bill; and President Bush, the commander in chief, signed it into law,” Robertson said in an email he sent me. “Is (Eastin) that unfamiliar with the chain of command that he believes he can go ahead and spend taxpayer dollars anyway?”

The most recent battlefront is over construction on the existing PCMS site. A non-profit group allied with Robertson’s organization called Not 1 More Acre! filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Colorado on April 23 to halt the construction of an encroaching 16-barrack military base on the western edge of the existing training site.

This construction is designed to demonstrate “need.” The Army plans to relocate military personnel to the area. The suit charges the Department of the Army with failure to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and failure to disclose the destructive environmental,cultural, and socio-economic impacts of the army’s proposed current expansion of Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS) to encompass private property between La Junta, Trinidad, and Walsenburg.

Meanwhile, the Army is building its own “coalition of the willing” to strengthen its claims on the land around PCMS. Kimmie Lewis, a third-generation rancher, says the Army is cozying up with environmental groups which see potential gain in taking land from private ownership, even if some of the land would be sacrificed to the damage caused by armored and mechanized military exercises.

“The PCMS expansion plan incorporates a Private Lands Initiative, which is a cooperative effort between the U.S. Army Forces Command, The Nature Conservancy, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which seeks to annex additional land around the borders of the installation, creating a buffer zone (and) removing even more land from productive purposes,” Lewis says. “It’s a strange coalition but it’s come together at several military sites.

The Nature Conservancy has been an active partner with the Pentagon since at least 2005, when the Bush White House urged “cooperation conservation” between the two as a way to expand the amount of land “protected” by the federal government, including the creation of environmental buffer zones around military bases. Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) and Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO) helped TNC acquire a $7 million
grant to secure a buffer zone south of Colorado Springs to protect the fort’s northern borders. These are called Army Compatible Use Buffers (ACUB), and they are legally binding agreement between an Army installation and another party that enables the other party to acquire land or interest in land from a willing private landowner in the vicinity of Army training areas. Fort Carson and eight other installations are currently enrolled in the “Active Conservation Buffer Program.

All of this – the uncovered plans, the lawsuits, the counter maneuvers, the political infighting – it takes its toll. It’s the uncertainty that’s the killer here. Even Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) – who has been trying to thread the needle between his ranching constituents and the demands of the Army – is frustrated. He told The Land Report that he still thinks a compromise can be reached that satisfies all.

“I am still hopeful that there is a way to find a win-win solution that strengthens the agricultural economy of southeastern Colorado and fulfills the needs of the Army. I have suggested several ideas to the Army, including leasing land from local landowners and opening some of the existing site to grazing. The Army has shown openness to some of these concepts, and Fort Carson officials are taking steps to work more closely with local communities to hear their concerns and ideas as well,” Salazar told me. “The cloud of uncertainty, however, is still hanging over the heads of local property owners, in large part because they still worry that the Army will use eminent domain to take their land. I have supported, and will continue to support, barring the use of eminent domain at Pinon Canyon. The residents should not have to live in fear of the Army taking their land.”

Rep. Musgrave concurs. “For the past two years I’ve worked on preventing the Army from spending any money on the expansion,” she tells The Land Report. “But (the Army) is very tenacious. They have time and all the things government has on their side.”

It’s this sort of scenario that has Mack Louden worried. He thinks one of the biggest problems expansion opponents face is that the opinion makers and major media types in Washington and New York can’t fathom the scale of acreage under discussion.

“For someone who pays $1 million for a 1,000-square-foot apartment or a quarter-acre lot, they think 100,000 acres is all the land in the world. Why not give up a little?” Louden says.

But in this part of the country a rancher needs up to 100 acres to support a single cow-calf pair. In the warmer months herds are fed grain. During the harsh winters they survive on protein-rich native grasses. Louden, whose own 30,000-acre ranch supports just 300 Red Angus, says that when all is said and done a rancher with his size operation is lucky to net $35,000 a year. Most ranchers and their wives work extra jobs to make ends meet or to get health insurance coverage.

Louden and I are driving down a dirt road that runs between along the fence line of the existing PCMS. Kennie Gyurman, who lost his ranch in the first PCMS back in 1983 and is still mad about that 25 years later, has joined us. Gyurman’s beat-up Ropers, faded Wranglers, and angry disposition come across anti-military, but once upon a time he worked for the Department of Defense just outside Denver.

“You can’t trust a thing they tell you,” Gyurman says. “They’ll say they want one thing and take another. They’ll say they just want this much, and then they’ll take everything. We have to stop them.”

Opponents of the expansion such as these two aren’t worried about their land. Gyurman’s already lost his, and Louden’s ranch isn’t even in the Army’s sites. Their position is as much philosophical as it is self-interest.

As Lon Robertson told me last year, “They say they need the land to help train our soldiers to fight for our rights. I thought one of our rights was the right to own property.”As for Louden, he sees a bigger problem than just one wing of the Pentagon making designs on a largely unknown piece of rural Colorado.

“The people are losing the government,” Louden says. “The Pentagon is going ahead with their plans despite all the studies they’re supposed to be doing. It affects everyone in this region, and they’re not even following their own rules.”

“This is one colossal land grab in Colorado,” says Rep. Musgrave, adding that she has little doubt the 2004 study where the Army eyes 7 million acres is the long-term goal. “And it’s always hanging over everyone. You can bet if there is (a permanent solution), we will find it. But bureaucracy has all the time in the world. They can be very patient and come back when this crowd gets worn down. I support the military with all my heart but they’re not right here. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

“We are all Americans,” Louden says. “We all support our country and our military. But the military is supposed to answer to the people, and to serve to protect our rights. What is the military defending us from if they’re the ones who take our land?”

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“Good quality timberland is selling all day long,” says Mike Patten of National Farm & Forestry. Patten has been buying and selling land and timber since the 1970s and knows the territory. According to him, individual buyers ebb and flow according to market conditions, but investors of all stripes—institutional, public, and private—continue to look for deals on timberland.

“There’s strong competition for the tracts ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 acres among the TIMOs (timber investment management organizations), REITs (real estate investment trusts), investors—everyone is all over it. Any large tract gets snapped up real quickly if it’s not cut over. But it has to be realistically priced. There’s going to be some distressed properties or bargains. There are some super buys out there from time to time. But timberland hasn’t been affected by falling prices in other sectors. It’s a great long-term investment no matter what’s happening,” Patten says.

Eroding confidence in other types of real estate is another factor driving the increased wave of investment in timberland. So says Jonathan Burt at LandVest. “There’s an awful lot of money chasing more traditional timberland deals,” Burt says. “They’re shying away from retail and strategies where they sell to Baby Boomers. With all of the perceived risks in real estate, there are still a number of bright spots for land investors to pursue.”

According to Burt, these places include undiscovered and/or emerging markets, places like northern Alabama and eastern Oklahoma. “Right now the real play is timberland. Things that are attractive now are things that can generate cash. Buyers realize that liquidity is something that can come and go. Two years ago they could buy property with the expectation there would be a motivated buyer not too far down the road. Now you have to look at holding things longer, so they want the income opportunity. That’s why timberland is getting sexy again,” Burt says.

Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Jonathan Burt was a forester and project manager for the Institutional Timberland Group. Mr. Burt is a forester and project manager for LandVest. The Institutional Timberland Group is a division of LandVest. The above article has been corrected.

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After the blaze, Louden told the Trinidad newspaper: “I was covered by insurance, but I also cancelled much of that insurance two weeks ago. All of our company records were stored in there. If the IRS ever asks us about our records, we’ll have nothing to show them.”

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Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) led the effort to allow the Army to circumvent the spending ban. Lamborn is the Colorado representative who attached language to the House version of the 2009 Defense Authorization Act that allows the solicitation of “willing sellers.” But Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) and Rep. John Salazar (D-CO), who back ranchers and other expansion opponents, say Lamborn’s attachment conflicts with the expansion moratorium.

Last year, the House and Senate sided with the Pinon Canyon opponents, so how that will be worked out remains to be seen. But John Salazar said the continuing moratorium would prevent the Army from acquiring land even if officials go ahead in soliciting landowners. “I am proud to report that this bill continues the funding ban to prevent the Army from expanding Pinon Canyon,” Salazar said in a statement to the press after the House version was passed.

Lon Robertson, a rancher and the leader of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition, says he’s furious about Lamborn’s maneuvering. “(Salazar and Musgrave) authored legislation banning all funding for any expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site; a majority of the U.S. House and Senate approved the bill; and President Bush, the commander in chief, signed it into law. Is Army Assistant Secretary Keith Eastin that unfamiliar with the chain of command that he believes he can go ahead and spend taxpayer dollars anyway? The Army cannot explain why they need this land and why they can’t train on the 25 million acres already owned by the military,” Robertson says.

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Salazar made the following statement condemning eminent domain just weeks after the Democratic National Convention.

“I continue to strongly oppose the use of eminent domain to expand Pinon Canyon in southeastern Colorado,” Salazar said. “The Army has said it would not use that power if the expansion were approved, but I support any measure that would put this promise into law.” He added that the Army must follow due process with all the attendant studies and impact statements, something ranchers say hasn’t been the case thus far.

“Before any acquisition occurs with taxpayer dollars, we must honor the process we put in place last year to get answers from the Army on whether they even need the land or, if they acquired the land, what effect it would have on southeastern Colorado,” Salazar says.

According to the ranchers caught in the middle of all this, Salazar’s opposition is good but not good enough. They say a checkerboard land grab would make the acquisition of other ranchers’ land a certainty because it would devalue adacent parcels as well as those in the immediate vicinity.

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More than a century ago, his type settled the Great Plains. In the decades since, they have gone off to war and then returned home to run family-owned ranches. Now Louden and many other Coloradoans are engaged in another protracted struggle as they oppose the U.S. Army’s planned 420,000-acre land grab in southeast Colorado.

“The people are losing the government,” he says. “The Pentagon is going ahead with their plans despite all the studies they’re supposed to be doing. It affects everyone in this region, and they’re not even following their own rules.”

Louden’s face and hands show the wear and leathering of a lifetime of ranch work. He walks with his head high, and he looks you square in the eye when he talks to you. A man with more years behind than ahead, he still has the fierceness of spirit of men half his age. So this is a man who doesn’t give up once he sets his mind to a task, and yet on an August afternoon, he’s finishing out the scutwork of closing his feed store in Trinidad about an hour away from his 30,000-acre ranch. He couldn’t run the store, look after his herds of Red Angus, and continue his battle against the Army’s eminent domain plans. The fight alone takes 50 hours a week. Something had to give, and the feed store went first.

“When it comes down to it, this is what’s important,” he says, sitting upstairs in the feed store. The bulk of the inventory downstairs has already been cleared. He spits a little Copenhagen into a cup as if to put an underline on it. “It’s driving my wife crazy how much of my time this has taken, but no matter what it costs me I’d fight it again if I had the chance.”

But Louden is not alone. In recent years, the movement opposing the Army’s planned expansion of the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS) has grown stronger. It’s a broad coalition of ranchers, archaeologists, paleontologists, tribal leaders, and business owners who oppose the expansion, but the ranchers are far and away the backbone of this domestic insurgency. (The current PCMS is 245,000 acres along and around the Purgatoire River. It was taken or purchased – after eminent domain proceedings – in September 1983 at a cost of about $26 million plus $2 million for relocating some ranchers and their  families.)

While the opposition is strong, political support in Denver and Washington is actually weak. Initially, Colorado’s two U.S. Senators – Republican Wayne Allard and Democrat Ken Salazar – gave lip service to the ranchers. Now both have backed off, offering lukewarm support at best. Only U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colorado) has been a staunch ally.

Louden and the rest of the ranchers are using every avenue they can. They’ve even employed the government’s own environmental and preservation laws to stymie the Defense Department’s plans. And opponents are also looking into what they say are suspicious connections between military contractors, Pentagon brass, Colorado senators, and some powerful interests in the state’s capitol.

Louden has already proven he’s willing to make this, his last fight, one he carries to the end. “We’ve already pledged it – not one more acre,” he says.

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For more than a year The Land Report has been tracking the largest proposed seizure of private property by the federal government in modern history: the Battle for Pinon Canyon. It pits ranchers in southeast Colorado against an opponent that’s not used to losing ground wars: the U.S. Army. 

The stakes are high. The U.S. Army’s Fort Carson, which is based more than 100 miles away in Colorado Springs, wants more than 420,000 acres – that’s more than 600 square miles of land currently in private hands – to expand an existing training ground known as the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site (PCMS). The U.S. Army already has 20 million acres of training grounds, but it says it has to have the land in Pinon Canyon.

Local ranchers, meanwhile, are refusing to give in, and they say they won’t just lose the land the Army wants but their entire way of life. The military’s land grab will disrupt their way of life, disturb neighboring ranches, cut some ranches off entirely, and decimate the economy of nearby ranching communities such as Trinidad.

Over the next several weeks, The Land Report will examine events unfolding in this epic, sometimes tragic struggle that pits some of the most traditional, red-state landowners against one of the few institutions of government they have an undying respect for but which they have vowed to fight to the bitter end.

Make no mistake: what happens in Pinon Canyon is something that affects landowners everywhere. The Land Report will be tracking this story every step of the way.

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BY TREY GARRISON
PUBLISHED JUNE 2008

At its heart, Bonanza was a series about an American landowner, Ben Cartwright, who ranched 1,000 square miles of the richest timberland and grass country in the Nevada Territory. (Ben also sired three sons by three different wives, each of whom met suspiciously tragic ends, but let’s not go there.) Ben’s love of the land was evident from the first episode. More important, the insights and advice he gave his three sons are applicable to all landowners and worth their weight in silver.

Respect the land. In an early 1959 episode—keep in mind this was way before conservation became cool—the Cartwrights are shown cutting down a Ponderosa pine that Ben reckons is more than 400 years old. As they finish the job, Ben directs the boys to plant a new sapling. One out, one in—conservation’s golden rule.

Know your sheriff. For some reason, Virginia City seemed to attract more ingenious murderers than Dick Wolf could ever squeeze on Law & Order. Consequently, the Cartwright boys spent more time cooling their heels in jail than the Dallas Cowboys lineup in the mid-1990s. They were always innocent, and Sheriff Roy Coffee typically released them to Ben’s custody, which allowed the Cartwrights to capture the real killers. Even back then, Ben knew that it’s always better to get to know the locals before you need their help.

Never give an inch. When Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain) comes to Virginia City, he discovers a local judge conspiring with a robber baron to seize some prime timberland on the Ponderosa. The Cartwrights first fight with guns and then do battle at the ballot box, triumphing in part thanks to Clemens’ wit. Ben knew if he let the railroad set a precedent, developers with local politicians in their pockets would use eminent domain to carve up the Ponderosa like a Christmas goose.

Stewardship pays. Ben knew how to profit from his holdings and regularly leased timber rights. But woe unto hydraulic miners. Ben and his fellow ranchers fought bitterly to keep those scalawags from scarring their lands. Ben loved making money, but not by ruining the land.

Know your neighbors. At least once or twice a season, some gringo would ride into the territory and stir up the Paiutes. Invariably, the angry Indians would go on the warpath. Was it the cavalry or Hoss that kept the Ponderosa safe? No, it was Ben’s good relations with his Paiute neighbors. Talking over the fence every now and then pays big dividends when a bad wind blows.

It’s rare television magic that can engage a kiddie cowboy on a stick horse and still offer lessons that hold true decades later. You could do worse than channeling your inner Cartwright now and again. And if Ben is right, you can’t do much better than finding your own Ponderosa.

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BY TREY GARRISON
PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 2007

Since 1639, Gardiner’s Island and its 3,300 acres have belonged to Lion Gardiner and his descendants. The six-foot scion of this American dynasty bought his domain not from the Crown or some colonizers but from Native Americans. More than 350 years later, his island is valued at $125 million (almost $40,000 per acre). Or at least that’s what it was when it was last formally appraised in 1989. On the island itself, the family manor stands as it has since 1774, nestled among chestnut trees, cherry trees, and willows, overlooking the bay. Behind the manor, a wide commons sprawls out to the edge of a white oak forest, interspersed with orchards and grain fields. Down near the shore, the famous Gardiner’s Island windmill can be found. The sense of legacy is palpable—from the Indian artifacts and the manor house and barns to the carpenter’s shed, the oldest wooden structure still standing in New York, built in 1639.

Not surprisingly, the island has been witness to an enormous sweep of American history; warring Indian tribes, infamous pirates, and British forces during the American Revolution and the War of 1812 all sought refuge there. In 1869, it was a rally point for an American expeditionary force bound for Cuba.

For more than a dozen generations, this Old World estate has remained in the hands of the Gardiner family, beginning with Lion Gardiner in 1639 and continuing to Alexandra Goelet today. Although the island and its properties are not cheap to maintain—property taxes and upkeep reportedly cost nearly $2 million a year—Goelet seems content to continue this tradition.

This indomitable legacy begins with Lion Gardiner. Popular history has it that his ownership was derived from a land grant from King Charles I. This simple, clean, and very formal pedigree is in fact a fiction, one perpetuated by the Gardiners themselves. The reality of how Lion came to own the island is much more interesting.

“Most of what you read about the early days of Gardiner’s Island comes from the Gardiner family themselves, so of course it sounds better and more prestigious to say it was part of a royal grant,” says Richard Barons, executive director of East Hampton Historical Society.

Lion was a decorated military engineer in the English army who served in the Netherlands with great distinction during the war of liberation against Spain. According to Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography, Lion was persuaded by Hugh Peters and other Englishmen to enter the service of a company of lords and gentlemen colonizing an American settlement for the Puritans. In 1635, he arrived in the New World and took command of 300 soldiers and workers, drawing up and executing plans for towns and forts. After Saybrook Fort was completed, the Pequots declared war on their new Connecticut neighbors.

During the two-year war with the Pequot, Lion commanded Saybrook. At the same time, on the eastern half of Long Island, Wyandanch led the Montaukett tribe. According to Barons, Wyandanch watched the war between the English and the Pequot with great interest. Both Lion and Wyandanch were men who could think beyond their own perspectives, Barons says, and this was critical to the relationship that formed between the two. Wyandanch soon recognized the superior firepower of the English. He repudiated his Pequot kin and formed an alliance with the English commander. According to Faren Siminoff’s Crossing the Sound: The Rise of Atlantic American Communities in Seventeenth-Century Eastern Long Island, such a repudiation was fully within the bounds of traditional native culture. Wyandanch made sure to negotiate the terms of the alliance according to Indian standards, and he insisted on a client-patron relationship rather than complete subordination.

In turn, Wyandanch enfolded Lion in traditional Indian forms by offering him land, specifically, the island that now bears his name. The Montauketts called it Manchonake, which loosely translates to “the place where many have died.” The island had been the site of an epidemic. Lion reportedly bought it for a large black dog, some powder and shot, and a few Dutch blankets. Conflicting reports say the purchase price was 10 coats of trading cloth.

“Wyandanch could see that Gardiner had a great deal of empathy for the Native Americans that other [settlers] did not have, and that was critical in this relationship,” Barons says. “Gardiner’s son learned to speak Algonquin. So the first real estate deal on Long Island wasn’t a royal land grant but a purchase between the [English] and the Montaukett.”

In 1639, Lion bought the island for a second time—this time from the Earl of Stirling, who had been granted the property by King Charles I. Later, a manorship was granted that gave Gardiner ownership of the island under English law, Barons says. The holding was originally called the Isle of Wight. Although the Gardiners never declared themselves lords or any such thing, they exercised the privileges of the title. How the island came to be called a manor and then a lordship also had little to do with royal ambitions on Lion Gardiner’s part, Barons says. It had more to do with something each and every landowner can identify with: cutting taxes.

“As the taxes on the property increased, Lion Gardiner finally sought to have the island declared a manor under English law,” Barons says. “You didn’t have to pay as much in taxes on a manor.” Lion, who died in 1663 in East Hampton, was always referred to as the Proprietor of the Isle of Wight as were his descendants until at least the 1790s. He was remembered as a steward of the island, a soldier hero, and a man with great vision.

No descendant ever lived larger than Lion Gardiner, but the centuries that followed have proved eventful. Lion’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth, was born on the island in 1641, the first English child born in New York. Though she died in her teens, she played a key role in colonial witch hunts as the accuser in one of the earliest witch trials, according to Curtiss Gardiner, who wrote a history of the family in 1890. In the 1680s, East Hampton attempted to annex the island into the township. Gardiner heirs convinced the powers that be to affirm the island’s special status, which remained in place until after the American Revolution. The largely symbolic designation “Lordship and Manor of Gardiner’s Island” was bestowed by Governor Dongan in 1686.

In 1699, Captain William Kidd entreated Lion’s grandson, John Gardiner, to allow the privateer to bury a treasure of gold, silver, candlesticks, and gems on the island before he sailed to Boston to answer charges of piracy. For their help, Kidd reportedly gave the Gardiners a piece of gold cloth captured from a Moorish ship off Madagascar, as well as a bag of sugar. Upon his departure, Kidd warned that if the treasure was not there when he returned, he would kill the Gardiners. John Gardiner later cooperated with authorities and turned the treasure over, reportedly keeping a diamond, which he gave his daughter.

During the American Revolution, the Gardiners renounced their loyalty to the Crown and declared their support for the fledgling revolution. Throughout this strife-torn era and then some 40 years later during the War of 1812, the British Navy used the island for supplying and staging. All the while, the manor house, which had been built in 1774, was left untouched.

According to the Encyclopedia of New York State, the family produced a number of important heirs through the years, from local representatives to U.S. senators. Julia Gardiner, born on the island in 1820, became the First Lady of the United States, marrying President John Tyler in 1844.

The great Walt Whitman took note of Gardiner’s Island in the latter part of the 19th century, writing: “Imagination loves to trace (mine does, any how,) the settlement and patriarchal happiness of this fine old English gentleman on his island there all by himself, with his large farm-house, his servants and family, his crops on a great scale, his sheep, horses, and cows. His wife was a Dutch woman—for thus it is written by his own hand in the old family Bible, which the Gardiners yet possess.”

By the 1920s, however, portions of the island were leased for hunting. Debt and taxes mounted, and in 1937, the island was slated to be sold at auction. A Gardiner cousin, Sarah Diodati Gardiner, stepped in at the last minute and bought it, keeping Gardiner’s Island in the family.

Title to the island was hotly disputed between two Gardiner descendants for decades. A regional writer named Mary Cummings summarized as follows: “In one corner was Robert David Lion Gardiner, who invariably referred to himself as ‘the 16th Lord of the Manor.’ An undisputed and indefatigable expert on Gardiner ancestral lore, he could hold forth on his ‘noble’ ancestry for hours at a time and rarely passed up an occasion to do so. In the other corner was … Alexandra Gardiner Creel Goelet … who battled under the green environmentalists’ banner.”

The battle raged in the courts for years. It was finally settled when Robert David Lion Gardiner died in 2004, leaving Goelet as the sole owner of Gardiner’s Island. Survival, it seems, may be the dominant family trait. Robert David Lion Gardiner himself said as much during a rare interview: “We have always married into wealth. We’ve covered all our bets. We were on both sides of the Revolution and both sides of the Civil War. The Gardiner family always came out on top.”

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