A group of people fenced off a portion of the San Juan National Forest in western Colorado as theirs, citing a long-repealed Civil War-era law, and sparked a row with locals and a civil dispute with federal authorities.
The group, identified as the Free Land Holders (FLH), “have constructed fencing around a parcel of land that they believe belongs to them under the Homestead Act of 1862,” an Oct. 9 press release from the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) said. The land, located in the Chicken Creek area, is now the subject of a legal dispute between the group and the U.S. Forest Service (USFS).
The Homestead Act of 1862 granted adult family heads “160 acres of surveyed public land for a minimal filing fee and five years of continuous residence on that land,” according to the National Archives.
Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln while the American Civil War was underway, the Act sped up land possession in the West for immigrants, landless farmers, unmarried women and ex-slaves but disadvantaged Native Americans, according to the National Park Service. (RELATED: Tribal Chief Is ‘Interested In Reclaiming’ Ancestral Land Where Ben & Jerry’s HQ Now Stands)
The act was repealed in 1976 except in Alaska where a legal provision allowed it to last until 1986.
Group builds fence on national forest lands, claims it as their own https://t.co/RwAJvaSb5O
— 9NEWS Denver (@9NEWS) October 11, 2024
Local USFS officials became aware of the development on Oct. 5 and told 9News Denver that the FLH had fenced off 1,400 acres of the forest for themselves. The FLH’s action reportedly angered some locals.
Residents from the nearby town of Mancos — some of whom were allegedly armed — cut down the fence Thursday afternoon, angry and concerned that the group would fence in public land, The Denver Post reported.
Self-identified FLH member Patrick Pipkin accused the Mancos residents of vandalism, theft and bullying.
The FLH did not restrict road or trail access to the public “for hiking, biking, grazing and hunting” in the Chicken Creek trail system, nor had they planned to do so, according to the MCSO’s press release.
“The group has been cooperating with the Forest Service and Sheriff’s Office to resolve the ongoing dispute,” the press release added.
As this was a civil dispute and not a criminal matter, the MCSO said it had no jurisdiction. Both the FLH and the USFS “agreed that no further development of the disputed property, including additional fence construction, will occur until a federal judge makes a ruling on ownership” after Sheriff Steven D. Nowlin met with the two parties.
The FLH is not directly tied to other Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) groups who once had property in the region, according to the press release. The FLDS is a pro-polygamy splinter group that broke away from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or the Mormon Church in the early 1900s because the latter suspended the practice of polygamy in 1890, CNN reported.
