—SIERRA MAGAZINE
San Juan County, Utah, contains some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, rich in natural wonders and Indigenous culture and history. But it's also long been plagued with racism, bitterness, and politics as twisted as the beckoning canyons. In 2017, en route to the Valley of the Gods with his spouse, a Colorado man closed the gate on a corral. Two weeks later, the couple was facing felony charges. Award–winning journalist Jonathan P. Thompson places the case in its fraught historical context and—alongside personal stories from a life shaped by slickrock and sagebrush—shows why this corner of the western United States has been at the center of the American public lands wars for over a century.
—SIERRA MAGAZINE
San Juan County, Utah, contains some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, rich in natural wonders and Indigenous culture and history. But it's also long been plagued with racism, bitterness, and politics as twisted as the beckoning canyons. In 2017, en route to the Valley of the Gods with his spouse, a Colorado man closed the gate on a corral. Two weeks later, the couple was facing felony charges. Award–winning journalist Jonathan P. Thompson places the case in its fraught historical context and—alongside personal stories from a life shaped by slickrock and sagebrush—shows why this corner of the western United States has been at the center of the American public lands wars for over a century.
Sagebrush Empire: How a Remote Utah County Became the Battlefront of American Public Lands
364
Sagebrush Empire: How a Remote Utah County Became the Battlefront of American Public Lands
364Paperback
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Overview
—SIERRA MAGAZINE
San Juan County, Utah, contains some of the most spectacular landscapes in the world, rich in natural wonders and Indigenous culture and history. But it's also long been plagued with racism, bitterness, and politics as twisted as the beckoning canyons. In 2017, en route to the Valley of the Gods with his spouse, a Colorado man closed the gate on a corral. Two weeks later, the couple was facing felony charges. Award–winning journalist Jonathan P. Thompson places the case in its fraught historical context and—alongside personal stories from a life shaped by slickrock and sagebrush—shows why this corner of the western United States has been at the center of the American public lands wars for over a century.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781948814447 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Torrey House Press |
| Publication date: | 08/24/2021 |
| Pages: | 364 |
| Sales rank: | 1,027,240 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
Gategate
When you are in the Valley of the Gods, the name doesn't quite equate. The landscape in this part of southeastern Utah appears mostly flat, broken only by a few landforms sticking up in the distance, and bounded on one side by a band of cliffs made up of various hues of pink and beige. From the Valley the cliffs look unnaturally small, as do the landforms, perhaps an optical illusion resulting from the vastness of the flats and the sky. It is only when you are atop that band of cliffs, otherwise known as the south edge of Cedar Mesa, that you can really see the Valley of the Gods. The illusion from below is shattered, and the sheer scale of the Valley becomes clear, particularly on stormy days, when clouds rush across the sky like galleons atop a sea the color of dried blood, and light plays upon the Kodachrome serpent of earth and stone known, anticlimactically, as the Raplee Anticline.
Rose Chilcoat and Mark Franklin were down in the Valley of the Gods in April 2017 when their lives took a surreal turn, as well, pulling them into an interminable legal quagmire that still hadn't ended three years later, in March 2020, when I sat down with them in their home in Durango to talk about it. Or, rather, we would talk around that fateful day, since they had yet to give depositions in the most recent phase of the legal tussle, and therefore couldn't talk about the case, itself. (Details about the case itself come from court documents and post–deposition interviews with Chilcoat and Franklin).
Our interview took place in the early days of the coronavirus, when toilet paper and hand sanitizer were hard to find, but businesses were still open, no one was wearing a mask, and some folks still shook hands in greeting. We had no clue what was coming, or that had we waited another week, the in–person interview would have been relegated to our computer screens. As it was, when I entered their house they immediately scooted some hand–sanitizer in my direction and we awkwardly elbow–bumped rather than shake hands or hug. Rose was in a wheelchair, a crocheted blanket over her legs, thanks to a brutal ski accident, but her powerful presence was undimmed. Mark is shorter than Rose, with a white goatee and lively eyes behind square–rimmed glasses. On their wall, a little sign says, "Live like someone left the gate open." The sign is kind of like the Valley of the Gods: its meaning only becomes clear when you zoom out and have the whole picture.
Mark's family goes back a few generations in the region. His great–grandparents landed in Leadville, Colorado, during that city's mining heyday, and then, during the Dust Bowl, his family moved to Gallup, New Mexico. Mark was born in Albuquerque and spent a lot of time hiking and camping and river running in Utah. "I've been going to (San Juan County) since there was only one paved road into Bluff and the San Juan didn't require permits," he said. After graduating with a degree in biology, Mark started fighting wildfires after graduating before segueing into a variety of other government work, mostly with land management agencies.
Although Rose grew up in the Maryland suburbs, her parents were adamant about getting her out into the natural world as often as possible, hiking and camping up and down the East Coast. "You're imprinted at an early age," she said. She worked for the Youth Conservation Corps and went to college at Virginia Tech, where she majored in horticulture and minored in environmental studies. In the early 1980s she moved to Durango to take a summer job with the San Juan National Forest doing cadastral surveys and first saw southeastern Utah's canyon country during that time when she went on a rafting trip on the San Juan River.
Soon thereafter, Mark met Rose at Lee's Ferry on the Colorado River as they embarked on a Grand Canyon rafting trip. Together, in Mark's telling, they were "gypsies following jobs and experiencing diverse public lands." Rose worked as a bio–tech in forest planning and at Mesa Verde National Park, at Rocky Mountain National Park, and at Grand Cooley Dam. Mark fought fires, managed a visitor center, and worked on the Exxon oil spill in Valdez, Alaska. The two worked side by side as raft guides in Big Bend National Park in Texas.
When Rose had her first child, she couldn't get the flexibility she needed from her job, so she resigned, and she and Mark moved back to Durango, where Mark started his own business doing interpretive graphic design, mostly for public lands agencies.
In 2001 Rose answered a want–ad for an assistant to the executive director of Great Old Broads for Wilderness, a Durango–based environmental group with members nationwide. The director at the time was Veronica Egan, who had helped grow the membership and the mission, and since she owned property in San Juan County, residents there tended to call on her for help when they witnessed environmental destruction or what they saw as negligence on the part of public lands agencies. The Great Old Broads would step in and bring the matter to the attention of the Bureau of Land Management, which has jurisdiction over much of the public land in the area, and push them to enforce the laws. "Our role with the agency has always been as friends and supporting them, but also holding our friends accountable," Rose said.
This didn’t always go over so well in San Juan County, where there is widespread animosity towards the BLM and environmentalists among the white "locals" and self–proclaimed Sagebrush Rebels. The Rebellion—which will get a lot of attention in the coming pages—rose up here after Congress passed a host of environmental laws in the 1970s, and it has never completely subsided, flaring up again in recent years whenever they felt wrongly persecuted, which is frequently. So when Egan retired and Chilcoat took over at the helm of Great Old Broads, Chilcoat also moved into the position of bete noire to this right–wing crowd—she and her colleague were even the target of death threats. She held onto that status even after she retired in 2016, and was still a focus of animosity in April 2017, when she and Mark decided to go hiking and camping for a few days in San Juan County, Utah, as they had done so many times in the past.
Mark had never been drawn to the Valley of the Gods, at least not as a place to go camping. At first glance the landscape seems homogenous, a canyonless expanse of red dirt and gravel, virtually devoid of vegetation, with far less draw for hikers than nearby Cedar Mesa. But it was April and the higher elevations would be colder and muddy and, besides, the Valley had been included in the Bears Ears National Monument, designated by President Barack Obama just four months earlier. So the couple decided to check it out, driving west from Durango in their Toyota, down McElmo Canyon, where the fruit trees were in bloom, through the little town of Bluff, over the dramatic landform known as Comb Ridge, and up onto Lime Ridge. It was April 1, 2017.
After leaving the highway, Mark needed to relieve himself, so he pulled off on a little side road that had a turnaround loop next to a corral, did his business, and then noticed that the corral's gate was open. He approached it, curious, and when he saw some cows, with long, sharp horns, approach, he became nervous and quickly shut the gate to keep them at bay. During his inspection of the corral he had noticed that the corral had another opening on the opposite side through which the cattle could come and go to get water from the trough within the corral.
Over the years, in his work as a firefighter and interpreter with land agencies, Mark had interacted with ranchers on a number of occasions. Once, he broke up a bullfight that would have otherwise resulted in the death of one or both of the animals. While working in Malpais National Monument in New Mexico he came across a calf with its head stuck between two posts. He did everything he could to save it, but failed. He was heartbroken. Although his wife worked with an organization that has pushed back on unsustainable public lands grazing, Mark has never felt very strongly about it, except when he sees lines of coyote carcasses hanging from a fence, a ritual some ranchers perform for reasons unknown. "I've always helped ranchers when I can," he said. "I’ve always closed gates as a courtesy."
He hopped back into the car and pulled away and continued up the road, toward the south face of Cedar Mesa. For two nights Mark and Rose camped in the Valley of the Gods and discovered that just as the majesty of this place is more apparent from a distance, so too does its subtle beauty only become evident when one slows down, gets out of the car, and silently stands close to the ground and observes one's surroundings: a beetle climbing a rock, a seedpod rattling in the spring breeze, the miracle of a trickle of water falling across umber stone. On the morning of April 3, they made breakfast, broke camp, packed up, and headed back in the direction they had come. Rose asked Mark to stop at one of the corrals they had passed on the way in, so that she could photograph it, because she felt that the bulldozed earth berms nearby may have violated BLM grazing regulations. Then they continued onward.
Before reaching the highway, they came across a big black pickup truck blocking the road. Standing next to the pickup, in confrontational stances, were three large men—cowboys. They weren’t visibly carrying firearms, but in this country, with this type of men, you can bet they had at least one gun within reach.
"Looks like we got 'em," said one of the men, as if auditioning for the part of a vigilante rancher in some tacky Western. He then accused the baffled and frightened couple of trying to murder their cattle. Mark thought at first that the men were joking, that it was all some sort of strange prank. The rancher, Zane Odell, explained that he had video from two days earlier showing the couple's car stopping at his corral not long before he found the gate closed, purportedly cutting off access to water. "Oh yeah, yeah, I shut the gate," Franklin said. "But that's what I do, I help you guys."
When San Juan County Sheriff Deputy J. R. Begay arrived a bit later, Franklin and Rose relaxed, somewhat. The sheriff at the time, Rick Eldredge, had publicly expressed disdain for environmentalists, and generally leaned ideologically toward the Sagebrush Rebel creed, but at least the pair wouldn't have to worry about being the victims of vigilante justice. Rather than serve as an impartial arbiter of a dispute, however, Begay immediately seemed to take Odell's side, saying, "I'm glad we were able to get them."
Odell responded to the deputy: "I want to go as far as absolutely is possible. Because in their little environmental world, in their social media, the rest of them will catch on, maybe, and leave the cowboys alone."
Begay interviewed Franklin, who admitted to closing the gate, but also noted that he had done so knowing that the cattle had another way in and out of the corral. Begay, apparently seeing that the couple did not represent a threat to society, themselves, or cows—the cattle, by the way, were fine—then ordered the three men to let Mark and Rose continue on their way. As Mark and Rose drove down the highway to Bluff—friendly territory in a county of unfriendlies—Rose theorized that the men were merely targeting her, specifically, since she and Great Old Broads had raised some red flags about the grazing allotments in that area. Here suspicions were confirmed just a day later.
They were trying to scare her, but it wouldn't work.
As if to prove her point, two days later Chilcoat sent a letter to the Monticello Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management pointing out that land had been disturbed within a Wilderness Study Area on Lime Ridge, potentially in violation of BLM regulations. She also recounted her experience with Odell and company, writing:
"On April 3, after I stopped to photograph the stock reservoir ground disturbance near the corral at the top of Lime Ridge along highway 163, my husband and I were accosted by three cowboys (one of whom I believe was Zane Odell and one who I believe was Zeb Dalton and one unknown to me) who physically blocked our vehicle, accused us of criminal activity, threatened us with jail, and prevented our return to the highway. This was a distressing and fearful experience for both of us. My husband was falsely accused of preventing livestock from reaching water. The San Juan County Sheriff was called, responded, spoke with us and cleared us to leave."
As if to confirm Chilcoat's suspicions about being targeted for her politics, on the same day that she sent the letter, The Petroglyph, a right–wing, conspiracy–spewing blog run by Monte Wells, who was prosecuted with then–San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman for organizing an ATV protest down Recapture Canyon in May 2014, gleefully posted that "Good old Rose Chilcoat from the Great Old Broads" had been "caught red–handed harassing and endangering live stock. Gotcha Rose! Ha! Who has the final laugh now?" The comments on the Facebook post were chilling, and included (sic):
"Stupid ass tree hungers think they are above the law! Damn Zeb you should of put a 40 Cal right between there eyes before the sheriff showed up…"
"Should punish her hanging no!"
A week later, San Juan County District Attorney Kendall Laws filed charges against both Franklin and Chilcoat. That Odell had continued to pursue them, and that the county had carried his water for him, was no surprise. The severity of the charges, however, were shocking. Both Franklin and Chilcoat were charged with "attempted wanton destruction of livestock," a second–degree felony, and trespassing on state lands (the corral was on Utah State Institutional Trust Land and leased by Odell). Additionally, Chilcoat was charged with giving false identity to a police officer (she said her last name was Franklin, rather than Chilcoat) and retaliation against a witness, victim, or informant, a third–degree felony, on the basis of the letter shehad written to the BLM regarding the potential grazing permit violations. All for closing a gate.
Thus was launched the bizarre and trying legal saga that became known as Gategate.
***
For those of you looking for a "true crime" investigation into a vast cow–killing conspiracy, this book isn't it. I'm not going to re–litigate the case, or try to dig and dig until I get to the bottom of what really happened out in the Southeastern Utah desert on April Fool's Day 2017. After all, the facts aren't in dispute. Franklin closed the gate, period. All that remains up for debate is his reason for doing so, and quite frankly it's a waste of time to hash that one out, especially since no cattle were harmed.
The intention of this book is to get at the question of exactly how it came to this, how an action as seemingly inconsequential as closing a gate potentially could lead to prison time for Franklin, a mild–mannered retiree whose political activism peaked with his involvement in the Old Spanish Trail Foundation, and that would inspire such vile comments and even threats of violence against Chilcoat.
Gategate is not an isolated incident, nor merely the product of a zealous prosecutor going too far. Rather, it is yet another escalation in a war that has gripped the western United States for decades, and has only heated up over the last decade. The fight has played out on the nation's public lands and over how best to manage them, but it has many fronts to it, and many aspects, including systemic racism, stolen lands, looted graves, resource colonization, environmental justice, economic inequality, religion, corporate control of our government, and, yes, cows.
San Juan County, Utah, has, more often than not, been the epicenter of this conflict. It was here that the Sagebrush Rebellion flared up in the 1970s, and where one of its most famous instigators resided. It was here that much of the fictional action in The Monkey Wrench Gang took place. It was here that the battle over Bears Ears National Monument unfolded, and continues to do so, and here where the voting rights of the Indigenous majority were stifled. It was here that President Donald Trump focused his efforts to eviscerate public lands protections implemented by Obama, and it was here that federal courts redrew voting district lines to give the members of the Ute Mountain Ute, Navajo, and Southern Paiute Tribes the voice they deserve in local politics. And it is here that the nation's uranium mining industry clings to survival, and where it may ultimately perish.
The nearly eight thousand square miles encompassed by the San Juan County lines are some of the most spectacular in the world. From the county's 11,360–foot highpoint the land plummets downward into a wrinkled mosaic of stone and sage and forests and badlands and utterly bizarre landforms. Thousands of miles of sinuous canyons cut through pale sandstone, with even the most insignificant–seeming ones holding millions of marvels in the cool shadows: thick slick strips of desert varnish, monkey flowers hanging from mossy seeps, tadpole–teeming deep pools left over from the last rain, intricate cryptogamic soil, psychedelic lichens.
For over eleven thousand years people have lived and loved and died and built and created here. Some stayed, some moved on, and now just fifteen thousand or so remain, all of them tied, in one way or another, to the extraordinary landscape. And yet they are also a people divided along ideological, racial, political, and cultural lines. In some ways, San Juan County is like a microcosm of the western US, maybe even the nation as a whole, only taken to the extreme, and Gategate provides a glimpse into that society, one which has yet to match the scenery.
Table of Contents
I. Gategate Part III. State Line
III. The Living Fossils on Muley Point
IV. Bluff Great House
V. Refuge
VI. Blizzard at Moon House
VII. Posey War
VIII. Aneth Oil
IX. Yellow Monster
X. Cal Black: Sagebrush Rebel
XI. Fuckhell Canyon
XII. The River
XIII. Recapture
XIV. Bears Ears
XV. Backlash
XV. Gategate Part II