Friday tidbits: GSENM Intertribal coalition; mining order hits the ground; electric railway; reading room

🌵 Public Lands 🌲

A bee on a milkweed flower along the banks of Boulder Creek in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Jonathan P. Thompson photo.

President Barack Obama designated the Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 at the urging of a coalition of five tribal nations: The Hopi Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Ute Indian Tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the Zuni Tribe. Representatives of those tribes came together to form the Bears Ears Commission, which now has a hand in managing the national monument and is ready to defend it from the Trump administration’s attacks, if necessary.

Earlier this week, four of those tribal nations (all but the Ute Indian Tribe) joined the Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah and the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians to form a similar coalition around the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The coalition will focus on advocating for the conservation of their aboriginal lands and for the continued protection and preservation of the cultural and environmental resources found within the monument, and will defend it from any attempts to modify the boundaries or reduce protections.

“The input of Tribal Nations, federal agencies, and local communities balancing cultural protection and conservation through Tribal Knowledge, lifeways, and conservation expertise ensures that Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument remains protected, accessible, and well-managed for future generations. Hopi believe that understanding the past is important for the future. It is essential to preserve our aboriginal lands as today I’Tah Kukveni (footprints) are recognized as ancestral clan migrations and something we can learn from for posterity,” said Craig Andrews, Vice Chairman of the Hopi Tribe, in a written statement.

Shortly after his confirmation, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum launched a review of dozens of national monuments, with the apparent aim of eliminating or reducing them. But the review, which was supposed to be completed weeks ago, has remained under wraps. Earlier this month, a White House order indicated that Trump had revoked the newly established Chuckwalla and Sáttítla Highlands national monuments in California — only to delete the order hours later. Confusion over their status remains. So far, however, neither Burgum nor the White House has made any move to shrink or eliminate Bears Ears or Grand Staircase-Escalante.

⛏️Mining Monitor ⛏️

Executive orders are one thing, but they don’t mean much until they play out on the ground. And it appears as if Trump’s mining order is doing just that. OPB reports that the Bureau of Land Management has super-fast-tracked the environmental review of a proposed lithium exploration project in southeastern Oregon.

On Wednesday, three years after Jindalee Resources submitted an operations plan for drilling up to 261 exploration wells and building 30 miles of roads at the McDermitt Caldera, the BLM published the environmental assessment. Yet instead of the usual 30- to 90-day public comment period, concerned citizens have a mere four days (until March 30) to give their input. Welcome to public lands mining in the Trump 2.0-era.

📖 Reading Room 🧐

I’ve just started reading Archaeology Southwest’s lovely new volume, Continuity and Connections: The Living Landscapes of Mesa Verde, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the Four Corners Region and the ancestral Puebloan culture.

The Mesa Verde region extends far beyond the boundaries of the national park, reaching onto the Great Sage Plain and canyons to the west, into the piñon-juniper woodlands to the north, and over to Chimney Rock and Salmon Ruins to the east and south, and the essays in this magazine do the same. They are written from a variety of perspectives, not only by archaeologists, but also Pueblo elders and scholars of various stripes. It’s a fascinating read about my favorite region.

Order your copy here: archaeologysouthwest.org/asw37-1

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The New York Times has a nice story on the relatively new wildlife overpass on Hwy. 160 near Chimney Rock in southwestern Colorado. It’s always been one of my least favorite stretches of road (actually, the whole Durango-to-Pagosa drive can be harrowing). Drivers tend to go too fast, and there are tons of deer, elk, and other animals looking to get to the other side, making a recipe for disaster. The crossing was finished in 2022, and has received a lot of use since by bears, coyotes, deer, elk, and even otters, as the photos accompanying the story reveal. In other words, the crossing works!

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Nick Bowlin over at High Country News reports that the Trump administration appears to have killed the $4.7 billion Biden-era program to plug abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells. Meanwhile, the funding freeze has also thrown the future of a Colorado State University effort to develop new methane emissions sensors into doubt.

In other words, the stupid from these folks just doesn’t stop. Far from threatening “energy dominance,” these programs actually help the oil and gas industry (some would even consider it a bailout), while building up two new industries alongside it: methane detection and mitigation and land-healing.

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🗺️ Messing with Maps 🧭

When I posted the maps of the proposed Ouray-Ironton Electric Railway, I hadn’t done quite enough searching for details, apparently. Luckily, kind reader Richard Scott sent me in the right direction, and I ended up with a heap of information about the proposal.

It appears that Otto Mears, himself, along with Charles Munn and another investor, were the first to push for an “electric road” between Ouray and Ironton. They incorporated the Ouray and Ironton Electric Railroad Light and Power Company in 1891 with $800,000.

The route would have started in Ouray and run up the toll road (now Hwy 550) to Ironton. A branch would have also gone up Poughkeepsie Gulch to the head of Cement Creek. The Rocky Mountain News predicted it would be a boon for Ouray, but would certainly take business from Silverton.

A map was drawn up for the proposed route in 1892 (but does not include the Poughkeepsie branch), but aside from a lot of scheming and dreaming, the idea didn’t seem to progress much after that. In 1893, the News noted that the proposed railway, which would cost at least $500,000, is “now beyond the realm of probability.”

But that same year the Sherman Silver Purchase Act was repealed, sending Colorado’s mining economy into free-fall and sparking the “Denver Depression" and dashing Mears’ plans.

They weren’t dead, however, just dormant. In 1899 the Rocky Mountain News reported that the electric railway project was “rapidly assuming shape and the road will be built.” In 1900 Colonel Charles Nix of Ouray and a group of Chicago capitalists took charge and assured the public they would soon begin construction. By then, the Revenue-Virginius mine was proposing its own electric rail line out of Ouray into the Sneffels Range. “Let these electric roads once get fairly started and they will go sailing around the mountains like eagles,” opined the Rocky Mountain News.

By 1905 folks were getting impatient, and when Otto Mears passed through Ouray, he encountered a “mob demanding that he build an electric line over the Uncompahgre cliff road,” but “he didn’t have much to say.” A few weeks later he said the only thing blocking construction was a disagreement about using the toll road as a rail bed. I think it was a bit more than that, since the whole project seems to have faded into oblivion shortly thereafter, never to be revived.

Until now, that is. I hereby propose the Land Desk Railway Revival Corporation, aimed at not only bringing back the abandoned rail lines of the West, but also resurrecting the dreams of rails that were never built.

📸 Parting Shot 🎞️

An ad searching for a “rider agent” to hawk these cool-looking bikes from a 1911 newspaper.