JOHN WESLEY POWELL AND THE NEW WEST

CHARLES F. HUTCHINSON

From the Cosmos Club’s founding member comes an
enduring view of arid land management

The year 1878 was a busy one for John Wesley Powell. America’s explorer, ethnographer, and geographer published a report that outlined an innovative vision for development of the West. That same year, Powell, together with several colleagues, founded the Cosmos Club. As noted in 1966 by Kip Ross, a Cosmos Club historian, “Organized in John Wesley Powell’s parlor in 1878, the Cosmos Club brought together scientists, men of letters, and artists in a group as diverting and as distinguished as could be assembled anywhere in the United States.”

The Cosmos Club, under Powell’s tutelage, quickly developed into the anticipated haven for intellectual curiosity. Powell’s Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States with a More Detailed Account of the Lands of Utah, however, fared less well initially. Guided by science rather than economics or politics, the treatise sparked a controversy that continues to smolder today.

Powell’s view of the fundamentally different nature of arid lands, the constraints aridity imposes on human occupancy and use of land, and how society might organize itself to deal with these constraints, is the subject of recurrent debate. Embraced by environmentalists since the 1970s, but reviled by many who promote “home rule,” Powell’s model of land management for the West is resurfacing in surprising ways.

WESTWARD HO: THE OLD WEST

After the Civil War, the United States began its explosive westward expansion. To channel this movement, the government undertook a number of “Great Surveys” to chart the paths by which new transportation routes might be established to knit together a growing empire. Powell led one of these surveys into the Southwest. His legendary exploration of the Colorado River provided him with unprecedented and celebrated insights into the geology of the West.

Powell, and others, came to realize that the lands of the West were significantly unlike those of the East. Physically, the settled lands east of the 100th meridian (about mid-Kansas) were favored by rainfall, topography, soil, and access to reliable sources of surface water, all of which permitted conventional agriculture over surprisingly large areas. The comparatively sparse populations of native peoples that were encountered were already being pushed back by physical force, disease, and economic and political isolation. The resulting tabula rasa was fertile ground for the growth of Jeffersonian democracy in an ideal nation of free and independent farmers. Although the Jeffersonian ideal could never really emerge from the reality of a dynamic, multi-faceted economy, the vision of a tranquil, prosperous, self-governing agrarian society has been a powerful force in our national consciousness. Fueled by this vision and the opportunity of free land, people streamed West.

To attract settlers to lands west of the original 13 states, the 1862 Homestead Act and subsequent land acts provided mechanisms by which anyone 21 years or older, or a veteran, could claim a homestead after settling and working the land for five years. In Ohio, Illinois, or Iowa, prudent farmers had a good chance to support a family on a standard 160-acre homestead with the rain that fell on their land. Where soils were rocky, boggy, or otherwise unfriendly to conventional agriculture, pastures or woodlots could be established to generate other income.

In the far West, extracting a living from a fixed plot of land was more problematic. Not only was rainfall scant, it was unreliable year-to-year, yielding conditions that did not favor rain-fed agriculture and did little to attract settlers. In areas where annual rainfall dipped below about 20 inches, farmers encountered increasing variation between years. Good years brought booms, but bad years could ruin fledgling farm enterprises. In the face of persistent assurances by land developers that “rain follows the plow,” Powell and others learned that “average” rainfall declines as one moves West and, more importantly, variability increases to where rain-fed agriculture is an extremely risky, and ultimately futile, proposition.

In the high plains that stretched west to the Rockies, farmers might expect bad years in three or four out of 10 over the long term. Beyond, in the intermountain West, growing crops without irrigation was largely impossible, and grazing livestock was the only agricultural option left. However, it might take more than 40 acres of sparse vegetation to support one cow and a calf in these places. In a very real sense, then, it became a matter of increasing cultivated acreage as rainfall decreased, trading land for rain. Given this reality, it made no sense to limit homesteads to 160 acres, and the size eventually was enlarged to reflect this productive decline the farther one moved west. This also meant that the West might accommodate fewer people and, thus, attract less of the capital needed for development.

Powell felt that mining might be one factor that could spark development. In a large sense, by funneling investment and immigrants into a region, he was right: the economies of many western states were ignited initially by the influx of people and capital in search of treasure. However, mining is always a wild card in development, and the various gold and silver rushes from 1849 onwards bore witness to both its power and fickle nature. At the local scale, bust inevitably follows boom, leaving little lasting value (hence the “ghost towns” that characterize most desert regions today). Observing the lack of residual value left by mining, historian Bernard DeVoto noted more than a half-century ago that these most marginal lands were not so much settled as they were systematically plundered.

Over the larger region, if mineral resources were not found, Powell saw that climate and topography would determine productivity. Where rainfall could not support agriculture, water might be diverted from streams to irrigate crops in valley bottoms. In higher elevations, where rainfall was greater, but soils poorer, lands could be managed to yield both timber and water. Livestock could graze those zones in-between that supported grass and shrublands. The poorest areas, those that supported little or low-quality vegetation, should be left alone. The ultimate key to productivity was irrigation.

The economic future painted by Powell contrasted sharply with that projected by the “boomers” who promoted western development. The West might offer unimaginable economic potential, but it was not distributed uniformly, a notion that ran contrary to the prevailing real estate market. Equally important, given the capital requirements of irrigated agriculture, Powell felt that it would require community effort, rather than individual initiative, to tap this potential.

TWO REVOLUTIONARY VIEWS

In the Report and subsequent papers over the next dozen years, Powell argued that the homestead model of settlement that worked well in the more humid and productive forests and prairies of the central part of the country should be re-examined and restructured for the West. For the West, Powell had two revolutionary recommendations that continue to reverberate in land-use debates today.

First, because water is the key to development (and irrigation the ultimate agricultural objective), land management units should be organized around watersheds. This would require scrapping the “township and range” survey system that imposed a rigid systematic grid pattern on the land. This led to the vast checkerboard of land holdings familiar to any transcontinental airline passenger with a window seat. In its place, Powell recommended a management plan and a survey system based on watershed units.

Using watersheds as an organizing principle, the whole region would be subdivided along topographic lines, beginning with large river basins or districts, such as the Rio Grande in New Mexico, within which would be nested smaller districts, such as the San Luis Valley. Each district could be evaluated in terms of the water it might yield to support irrigation. Powell’s watershed approach was revolutionary by acknowledging that different lands within one region had different economic potential. He further asserted that the government, which was seeking to transfer lands into private hands, must perform surveys to establish the potential value of the land and make survey results known to the public.

The focus on irrigated agriculture as the economic foundation for arid lands led Powell to another revolutionary recommendation. Building and maintaining the reservoirs and canals that would feed irrigation systems required significant capital investment, while sustained maintenance of the system and the distribution of water among participants would necessitate fairly sophisticated social institutions. Based on his experiences in Mormon Utah, Powell felt that, rather than relying on individual initiative, communities should undertake development of western “watershed commonwealths.” This was a significant departure from the Jeffersonian ideal of democracy based on individual independent farmers that had helped propel westward expansion. Moreover, by placing communities at the forefront of development, industrial capitalists, who then dominated the national economy, were largely excluded. By allowing farmers to purchase 80 acres of land that could be irrigated and giving them collective stewardship over remaining range and forest lands, a new decentralized model of public land management might be forged.

Reaction to Powell’s recommendations, which took another 16 years to play out fully, was largely negative. By threatening to develop and distribute information on the economic potential of western lands, he undercut speculators who relied on settlers’ ignorance. By arguing that investment in these new lands come from within, relying heavily on community cooperation in labor and financing, he largely cut out capitalists. By suggesting that forested lands be held by the federal government, but managed by communities, he simultaneously locked out timber interests and those who might argue for a larger state or federal government role in land management. By insisting that lands be withheld from entry until they were surveyed and described, he stymied the developers who sought any sort of advantage in gaining access to the most favored lands.

Powell’s insistence on an initial survey prior to entry inadvertently suspended the Homestead and other related acts, thus denying settlers access to land. This was something that Powell did not necessarily oppose, but, by blocking entry, he alienated most popular opinion. While implementation of Powell’s recommendations would have led to a more orderly and prudent approach to development over the long run, Powell stomped on the toes of virtually all interests in the West. Not surprisingly, these interests stomped back and defeated him in the end.

His contributions to our understanding of arid lands would have been diminished had it not been for the publication of Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, by Wallace Stegner in 1954. In this book, Stegner chronicled Powell’s adventurous life, Civil War experiences, his scientific findings, and, perhaps most notably, his work as a Washington bureaucrat. This landmark volume re-established Powell’s place as a leader of his time, but it also served to make him a modern hero. He fought for beliefs grounded in science and guided by his vision of the public good.

WESTWARD YO: THE NEW WEST

Powell’s story is compelling in its own right, but his views on the arid lands in general, and in the West in particular, have had a peculiar resonance over the past quarter-century as development has intensified in the latest wave of growth in the West. Given his unwavering belief in irrigation and his commitment to ensuring that no drop of water would be “wasted” by allowing it to flow to the sea, Powell would seem to be an unlikely candidate for any Green Party ticket. However, in the 1970s, the environmental movement embraced his notions regarding the limitations to development in arid regions and the centrality of water management to their sustained use, both concepts of special importance to the West. In addition, his view of watersheds as basic units for land management has become a unifying concept for land managers in all regions. Much of his science was right, even if his “politics” were not.

In a great deal of the West, particularly Arizona and Nevada, irrigated agriculture is being replaced rapidly by urbanization. Powell’s “Old West” economy based on extractive enterprises, such as mining, irrigated agriculture, forestry, and ranching, is quickly but reluctantly giving way to a “New West” that relies on recreation, tourism, and an outdoor lifestyle that attracts high-technology industries. The resulting population growth has increased both the size of the “community” and the number of voices that must be accommodated. This has led to new debates that Powell could not have imagined, but the processes he envisaged for resolving the points of debate have proved surprisingly resilient.

The “Sage Brush Rebellion” of the 1980s and its offspring, the “Wise Use” movement of the 1990s, were regional challenges to continued federal management of vast tracts of land in the western United States. Although some went so far as to argue for privatization of public lands, the general push was to devolve local management decisions from national or regional centers to some level that was more responsive and accountable to local interests. The response to these concerns has been to develop public participation mechanisms by which all “stakeholders” are brought together to discuss management decisions made by federal agencies. This is one form of participation but, unlike the Mormon pioneers Powell admired, these are communities of individuals who lack the social cohesion, sense of common purpose, and economic commitment that would allow them to function as he envisaged.

Debate over the federal government’s role in western land management has festered from Powell’s time to the present. This is not surprising, given the size of federal land holdings. About 88 percent of the nation’s public land within the contiguous 48 states is in the 11 western states. Among these states, percentages of public land range from 28 percent in Montana to 83 percent in Nevada. Much of this land area is locked up in military bases, bombing ranges, nuclear facilities, national parks, and Native American reservations (particularly in Arizona). However, the sizeable remainder is under control of the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, which manages both local and national lands for the public good.

From the “Wise Use” perspective, the federal government is the truculent 800-pound gorilla in western land management, exerting mighty, arbitrary, and even ill-intentioned influence on local economies. The establishment of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah in 1996 with little, if any, input from local residents is a good example. This and other actions by the Executive Branch have served as a Sockdolager, by Clyde Ross Morgan In 1869, after John Wesley Powell and his party successfully navigated the rapids of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, he referred to the area as the “sockdolager of the world.” Though the old English boxing term means a knockout punch, the Colorado River beat up on the Powell party but never knocked it out. In later years, one of the rapids was named lightning rod to attract many who seek to retain local autonomy and preserve existing local economies.

The movement to retain some part of the Old West draws on considerable reserves. These derive in part from a direct threat to established livelihoods, a general reluctance to see change, and an increasing desire to see western heritage preserved. However, the most destructive economic activities, including mining and logging, threaten the majestic scenery and unspoiled open space, two essential pillars of the New West’s economy. Thus, perhaps in a perverse twist, as development pressures have accelerated over the past generation, the gorilla has come to play an increasingly important role in preserving the rural landscape on which the economy of the New West is built.

During Powell’s time, cattle barons in the West owned expanses of private land and controlled neighboring public lands. However, like medieval European manors, large ranches have proved difficult to sustain over time. As the local population grows, land prices are inflated, reducing the return on investment for low-intensity uses, such as ranching. Consequently, the incentives to sell are enhanced significantly. Large private holdings also are subject to fragmentation by inheritance taxes and the need to satisfy multiple heirs, thus encouraging piece-meal subdivision. Finally, as society has come to embrace biodiversity and quality-of- life values, there has been a corresponding demand to preserve threatened and endangered species and their habitats, both in undeveloped and developed land.

Most importantly, open space has been added recently to this list of “things endangered.” Heightened public demand has led to the purchase of private land by various government agencies or conservation groups, such as The Nature Conservancy, to protect watersheds, biological resources, and open space.

As the absolute amount of land available for ranching has decreased, western ranchers have had to pursue several survival strategies to maintain access to the land they need to operate. Two models of ranching have emerged. In one, the wealthy purchase large tracts and pursue ranching as a lifestyle rather than a livelihood. Insulated from ranching economics, they can choose to ignore the forces that erode large land holdings. In the other model, those who pursue ranching as a livelihood may own a relatively small area, perhaps less than 40 acres, though invariably land with water. These ranchers may lease fairly large tracts of adjacent public lands, perhaps 20,000 acres or more. In return for access to public lands, ranchers pay a fee for the animals they graze, and provide and maintain improvements, such as watering points and fences. Thus, in addition to fees (whose size and existence are under continuous debate), government agencies receive improvements to the land and secure active management of the land by ranchers.

Differences in opinion over management have led to considerable conflict. The move toward a “community” model of decision-making leads to increasing complexity as the number of players grows (i.e., rancher, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, State Land Departments, Fish and Wildlife Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, environmental groups, and the like). This places an increasing burden on ranchers who must satisfy a growing number of competing interests, many of which are perceived as coming from “outside” with little, if any, economic stake in the management decisions they influence. But, as the population of the West has grown and become concentrated in urban areas, “outsiders” are increasingly “locals” and feel they have a legitimate stake in how the public lands on which they rely for water, recreation, and aesthetic returns are managed. Equally important, as almost any issue of High Country News will show, there appears to be a growing appreciation by New Westerners for the ranchers’ plight and a willingness to explore options that will allow ranchers to maintain their livelihood and so preserve open space and a part of western heritage.

Ranchers are put in an increasingly awkward position by having to deal with an ever-expanding “community.” Nevertheless, one can argue that the continued survival of ranching is dependent on these partnerships. Most ranching families relying on the ranch enterprise for their livelihood cannot resist the forces that work to erode their private holdings. As a result, they must depend increasingly on access to other lands controlled by various groups and government agencies, such as the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and state entities, all of which involve public participation. In current circumstances, it appears that ranchers will have to deal with more, rather than less, community involvement. In the minds of many ranchers, this unwieldy approach to decision-making may not be workable over the long run.

COLLECTIVE MANAGEMENT

The current, rather awkward, public-private partnership is one model of community management that Powell probably would not have sanctioned, but might admit to be a reasonable start. Over the past 10 years, though, another community approach has appeared that seems to cleave closer to Powell’s envisaged watershed commonwealths. In these emerging models, ranchers are attempting to manage their resources collectively. For example, the Malpai Borderland Group in southwestern New Mexico has been working to implement a true community form of resource management that revolves around a “grass bank.”

In this model, the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, The Nature Conservancy, and ranchers work together. They commit to the common goal of sustainable ranching by entering their individual properties into “conservation easements” for a fee paid by the government or other organization. This increasingly common mechanism extinguishes development rights and ensures that subdivision cannot occur. Ranchers retain ownership of their individual operations, but cannot use their lands for anything other than ranching or conservation. For this commitment, they gain access to the collective range resources that can be tapped during times of hardship, such as drought or fire. The Malpai model requires special commitment and conditions that are still rare, but it shows that there is both the creativity and willingness to find innovative approaches to community-based management.

As America’s population continues to expand and the wide-open spaces of the West are subdivided, or come into public or quasi-public ownership, or are viewed as collective resources of biodiversity or open space, the number of voices that must be heard in land management decisions inevitably increases. The task of accommodating divergent views grows into a ponderous task that may result—and some argue it already has resulted—in adverse effects on the land resource.

The Sage Brush Rebellion and the Wise Use movement are continuing symbols of local resistance to land management decisions made in the West by the government and perceived outsiders. Predictably, as outside pressure increases, these movements persist, respond, and often grow. But the forces of population growth, social concern, and land economics will escalate public involvement in land management decisions, regardless of protest. The challenge is how to accommodate the debate most fairly.

It is possible to argue that Powell’s community model is re-emerging in the West. In its first form, Powell’s community model was driven by the need to mobilize the capital and labor required to overcome the physical constraints of the land. The strategies required to overcome these constraints, now amplified by a common interest in conserving vast western landscapes, again force collective action by all those who feel they have a stake in land management in the West.

Instead of a vehicle for mobilizing capital, the community model now is being used to elicit opinion and, ultimately, focus political will. Where Powell’s communities would have been united socially and economically, today’s “community” is much more diverse and tenuously bound by only a shared desire to conserve the land resource. The points of contention arise from the definition of the land resource itself, the means by which it might be conserved, and how these issues might be resolved in a way that is satisfactory to all sides. No side seems enamored of the community process, but, as with any other democratic institution, alternatives are difficult to find that might be more fair in considering the economic and social issues that accompany the inevitable transformation of the Old West into the New West. The rapid and dramatic shift in the economic base of the region might surprise Powell, but the means that have re-emerged to deal with the transition might seem familiar.

Additional Resources:

de Buys, William. “Saint Contrary: John Wesley Powell,” High Country News (Vol. 31, No. 7), 1999. http://www.hcn.org/1999/apr12/dir/Essay__Saint_Cont.html.
DeVoto, Bernard. “The West: A Plundered Province.” Harpers Monthly Magazine (Vol. 169), 1934.
Hess, Jr., Karl. “John Wesley Powell and the Unmaking of the West,” Journal of Environmental History (Vol. 2, No. 1), 1997.
Stegner, Wallace E. Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1954.

Charles F. Hutchinson (CC ‘99) is a professor in the Office of Arid Land Studies, College of Agriculture, the University of Arizona, and executive editor of the Journal of Arid Environments (Academic Press).

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