Dust to Dust on a Checkerboard Landscape I

Significant portions of the American West landscape are divided into arbitrary square-mile sections in a checkerboard pattern of ownership. The 19th century government land-use policy has been described as a manifestation of a human desire to order the world. The U.S. government accumulated massive land tracts through wars and broken treaties with indigenous tribes. In 1862 Congress deeded alternating square-mile sections to private railroad companies building transcontinental railroads. The resulting checkerboard policy is now recognized as a huge mistake, causing a complex national debate about private property, public access, range management and wildlife migrations in the West.